


The second padawan

by Choxy



Series: The second padawan [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Battle, Clone Wars, Force Bond (Star Wars), Friendship, Gen, How Do I Tag, I'm Bad At Summaries, I'm Bad At Tagging, Master & Padawan Relationship(s), My First Fanfic, Padawan (Star Wars)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-06
Updated: 2020-01-07
Packaged: 2021-02-27 04:35:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 28,815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22151149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Choxy/pseuds/Choxy
Summary: What if Ahsoka hadn't been the only padawan on the transport shuttle?What if Obi-Wan had gotten another padawan? One that is insecure but strong, with a love for weapons but a heart too big for a war.What would have changed?Would it even change anything?___This is the first part of a series of 'one-shots' about an OC of mine.There will be no real plot, no chronological order, not every story is related or even in the same timeline.This is mostly just where I vent my ideas but I still do hope you'll enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing this!
Relationships: Ahsoka Tano & Original Female Character(s), Anakin Skywalker & Ahsoka Tano, Obi-Wan Kenobi & Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi & Original Female Character(s)
Series: The second padawan [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1594390
Kudos: 59





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Before this starts I want to tell you, English is not my first language. So please do not be so harsh on me if there are many mistakes. You're free to leave any comments you like (except mean bashing)!  
> Now have fun and I hope you enjoy this.
> 
> *  
> " "= speech  
> ' '= monologue

Christophsis.  
A once peaceful planet, now ravaged by the torments of war. 

A major battle has sprung forth between the Separatists and the Republic. None of them gaining any foothold over their opponent.

The droid army is massive, numerous and deadly.   
Droids mixed with heavy units and heavy guns. 

The clone army seems to have trouble fighting back.   
It consists of normal clone units with them experienced officers like Commander Cody and Captain Rex.   
The troops are led by two legendary Jedi Generals, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker. 

Right at this moment, there is a rare moment of quietness.   
No blasters are heard, no metallic footsteps and no dying screams.   
Both armies are trying to come up with a new strategy to take down the enemy. 

The Separatists tanks can’t get close to the Republic's base because of the AV-7 Antivehicle artillery cannons.   
These giant machines are movable, only need one tank gunner to fire, and can take out both tanks and groups of infantry droids in one hit.   
Their long-range capabilities allow them to keep the enemy well away from their front lines and out of their range of fire to hit them. 

Padawan Tabitha Flux can see them from her spot in the transport shuttle that just now flies overhead of the republic base and its occupants. 

“Stop ogling.” Ahsoka Tano, the second padawan on this ship and Tabby's best friend, scolds her playfully, grinning kind of fondly at the smaller girl. 

Turning to glare (without much heat behind the stare, of course) at the Togruta, Tabby declares “I am not ogling!”   
“You definitely are. What are you looking at?” Ahsoka scoffs and shuffles over to her friend.  
Tabby moves away from the window for her to look out and starts explaining.   
“AV-7 Antivehicle artillery cannons. They're powerful pieces of heavy ordnance with massive long-range capability with the firepower and rate of fire to match. So cool!”   
“Nerd.”  
“Hey! I'm not-”

The sudden shout of the pilot cuts of the rest of her sentence “We're landing!” 

Out of nowhere, nervousness hits Tabitha full force, the reality that has been kept at bay by daydreams returning to her mind faster than hyperspeed.   
She almost sways where she stands when everything she hoped not to feel right now seems to want to squeeze into her little frame, replacing half of her air supply with whatever. 

Breathing in and out deeply, Tabitha focuses on not suffocating in a room filled with air. 

Why even is she feeling like this?   
Is this what a panic attack feels like?   
…  
No, no. From what she heard those are much worse.   
She never had one so she can't really tell but this is not it, probably.

'Okay, focus on breathing. Everything will be fine.'

So she does.  
Tabitha concentrates on her breathing, the rhythm of it, the feeling of artificial air streaming into her lungs, every single expanding of her chest until she feels relatively okay again and her thoughts unwrap themselves from the jumbled mess they were.   
One jumps out of the pleasantly straight line they created, the one that had even started this little struggle of hers.

She will meet her new master in just a few minutes. 

A new chapter of her life will begin in just a couple of moments and she doesn't exactly know how to feel about that.

Excitement and fear mix in the pit of her stomach and create one of the most disgusting but unfortunately familiar emotional mixtures she has ever felt. 

The excitement is understandable but the fear? 

Of course, everyone's a bit afraid of leaving what they know behind and stumble into an unknown future.   
But there's more to that feeling of anxiety.

There's the sliver of fear of rejection because of her age. 

It's happened before!  
There was a Master who had been searching for the right apprentice in the temple and so she watched the training fights between padawans, evaluating their skills in both fight and Force and the potential they could show when trained. 

And just when Tabitha thought she piqued the master's interest, did the older Jedi turn away with a shake of her head and a grim expression marring her face, walking over to the next fight between two older padawans. 

Later, after the Master found her new apprentice in an older Nautolan and Master Yoda approached a saddened Tabitha, she asked the old grandmaster why the other master turned away so abruptly after minutes of watching her and the padawan she trained with, clearly curious.   
His long pointy ears just flattened against his skull and he patted her forearm with his three-fingered hand in solace before technically telling her some think she's too young to be a padawan.   
Not in those exact words, of course, ones that sound wise and old and appropriate for the grandmaster of the Jedi but that's essentially what he said. 

Many think Ahsoka and her are too young to be padawans.   
Ahsoka is 13 and Tabby is 12, so she thinks it's not too young, many initiates are chosen at this age, that's why she never understood the Master. 

It's normal, is it not? 

During the decade she now almost spent at the temple on Coruscant, she has witnessed many younglings progressing to their padawan training and most of them had been around their age, so pray tell why did so many other Jedi Masters scowl down on Master Yoda when he made the decision to send them to their new masters on Christophsis? 

What changed except that war had stirred in the galaxy? 

Should the Jedi really abandon their traditions because of it?   
Should they stop sending padawans out until the war is over? Should they stop training their students in more than just theory?  
And what will happen when the war takes longer than anyone expected?  
What are the padawans supposed to do when they weren't even trained for war?

Tabitha is not yet wise enough to answer all of those questions, maybe some of the old masters themselves aren't, but hopefully, that'll change along with the rest of her life. 

Maybe her soon-to-be master can tell her the answers.

Speaking of which…

With her luck, she'll probably make the worst first impression imaginable but, hey, no negative thoughts, huh? 

Although, before her brain can think up too many bad scenarios Ahsoka speaks again.   
“Try not to embarrass yourself in front of our new masters. You'll make me look bad if you do.”  
Typical Ahsoka for you, cocky and sassy. 

“Right, we can’t let that happen now, can we?” 

Only a couple feet above the ground, Tabitha sways her gaze back outside the little port side window only to be taken aback at the sight that greets her.

Fallen skyscrapers are lying on the road in shambles, said roads have quite impressing explosion marks on them and she's sure if she'd have been standing on the ruined streets, she could have smelled the destruction in the air and she could've seen blood and motor oil trying to mix but fighting against each other just like their owners have.

There are clones moving injured and dead, dismembered droids littering the ground not too far away, white armors creating a sea of color that would have been more fascinating if not so many were so full of scuff marks and soil that could not have possibly come from the sterile planet that is Christophsis. 

It reveals where they have fought before, how many times they have fought in those few weeks since Geonosis.

The marks left behind by those fights we're either kept as mementos or left on their armor because they could not get rid of them. 

The scene looks horrifying but still, her gaze doesn't waver.   
Something inside of her wants her to see, wants her to understand what she's stumbling into here.   
This is everything she's never been trained for.   
Everything the Jedi never really considered to happen.

But she refuses to back out now.  
Tabitha doesn't know what to do but she'll learn, she'll adapt and she'll get stronger.   
That is what being a padawan means.   
To grow from the lessons your master and the Force provide you with and never give up. 

She'll become a Jedi Knight even if she has to live through a war before that. 

Tabby was so fixed on the sight that she did not hear the ramp lower or Ahsoka step out to introduce herself to the two older Jedi that'll be their masters from now on. 

“Tabby! Get your butt out here!”

Startled from her thoughts, a surprised noise escapes her mouth and she shouts back quickly as to not have the wrath of an angry Togruta upon her.  
“Ah! Geez, hold on a second, Ahsoka! I'm coming.” 

She hurries down the ramp, light blush blossoming on her too pale cheeks, and makes her way towards Ahsoka and the two Jedi standing right behind her, both switching their slightly amused gazes between the now glaring Togruta girl and sheepishly looking human padawan shuffling down the ramp.

“Give a girl some time, would you?”   
Ahsoka scoffs and gives Tabby an irritated look.   
“You were just daydreaming again. Really, out of all the times, you had to do it now?!”  
“Ey! It's not my fault my mind got caught up in something!”  
“You know who they are right? You couldn't have made a better first impression than that?!” 

While the two female padawans bicker back and forth, Anakin and Obi-Wan glance at both of them before sharing a look. 

Anakin leans closer to his former master and whispers so the girls will not hear.   
“This was not what I was expecting.”   
“Me neither.” The older male agrees before taking a step forward, getting the attention of the two arrivals.   
“Excuse me?” 

Both of them stop arguing as the new voice interrupts their little fight and look up to see Obi-Wan Kenobi looking at them with a much more amused look than before. 

Tabby feels the heat creeping up her neck to her cheeks intensify while Ahsoka blushes herself, making her orange face look much darker and the white markings stand out even more.

“I believe you two are here to relay a message?” the ginger asks patiently.

“Oh, right.”   
‘Focus, Tab.’   
"You're required back at the temple because something important has come up that requires your presence.”  
The raven-haired girl explains to the two older men. 

Master Skywalker looks skeptic and slightly infuriated.   
“If you haven't noticed, we're in an emergency here.”

‘Yeah, the devastation kind of tells that.’ She thinks, looking back over her shoulder to the destroyed buildings and wounded soldiers. 

Christophsis would have been beautiful if not for destruction going on.  
Really, who wouldn't have loved to see big, diamond-like skyscrapers reach the clear blue sky, cutting through clouds?   
Especially while the inhabitants idly chatted on the street and the peacefulness could lull you to sleep.

It most likely was that way before the war wreaked havoc on the crystalline world.  
'Damn it! It's only been a couple of months but so many parts of the galaxy have already gone to poodoo!'

Her line of thought gets interrupted by Master Kenobi's accented voice.

“We've been calling for help but our communications are a bit unreliable at the moment.” 

Ahsoka and Tabby share a look before Tabitha gestures to them and says.   
“Master Yoda hadn't heard from you, so he sent us to deliver the message.”   
“Great.” Master Skywalker sighs tiredly, then speaks in an equally annoyed tone. “They don't even know we're in trouble.”

An idea comes to Tabitha so fast it almost surprises herself and she looks excitedly back at Ahsoka, a glint coming to her eyes that is quite endearing, she's heard at least.

“The cruiser!” 

Understanding dawns on Ahsoka's marked face when she finally deduced what her best friend meant and she nods after a second of consideration. 

“You're right. Maybe we can relay a signal through the cruiser that dropped us off.” 

——————————————

“We're under attack by separatist warships but I'll try to make contact with the Jedi Temple for you. Stand by.” A clone officer tells them, clad all in grey which is now only conveyed in the bluish color that is normal for holograms, and then his holo cuts off. 

Tabby stands beside Ahsoka, arms crossed over her chest and tapping the familiar tune of a song on her arm distractedly. 

This is not how she imagined meeting her new Master. 

A few years ago, she would've thought it would be normal, peaceful but when the war began those thoughts were banished.   
The war was brutal, not enough time for formalities like that. 

She read about it, casualties, front lines, reports, but being here puts all that to shame.   
The Force feels so much heavier around here and the girl wasn't prepared for that. 

It seems like she was fortunate for the safety of the temple in contrast to others. 

Thinking back to the destruction of the city, she asked herself whether the inhabitants were evacuated or in another city and how many of them died when the Separatists invaded their planet, put a powerful blockade around it and cut off their supplies. 

A small nudge at the edge of Tabby's conscience brings her out of her dark thoughts and she tenses on reflex and looks around hastily.   
Kriff!   
She zoned out again. Had she missed something important? 

Tabby peers around but everything looks the same. 

Master Skywalker still has that impatient expression on his face, Ahsoka switches between looking at her new master and the holotable and Master Kenobi…. 

Well, that settles the question who nudged her. 

The Jedi Master is looking at her with a tad bit of worry in his pale eyes and small reassuring smile.  
Sheepishly, she looks down at her black boots.   
She must have been projecting very much if he could feel it. 

Suddenly Master Yoda's blue image shows up on the holotable, prompting the twelve-year-old to snap her head back up. 

“Master Kenobi. Glad the padawans found you I am.” 

"Master Yoda, we are trapped here and vastly outnumbered. We are in no position to go anywhere or do anything. Our support ships have all been destroyed." 

Now that's a really grim statement.   
Is it really this bad? 

"Send reinforcements to you we will…."   
The connection goes all staticky and then cuts off abruptly leaving everyone but Master Kenobi, who tries desperately to get Master Yoda back on the line, silent. 

Tabby steps are closer to the computer and fiddles with the controls.  
"C' mon, c' mon." She grunts as she tries to clear the transmission but it's not coming from them. 

The previous ensign clone from before appears back on screen. "We've lost the transmission, sir." Yeah, she suspected that.   
Two more clones walk into the screen, one being the same rank and the other in full armor.

"We have to leave orbit. More enemy ships have just arrived. We'll get back to you as soon as we can." 

And with that last sentence, the transmission cuts off entirely.  
The holotable beeps for some seconds before turning off completely, awaiting new orders.

Heaving a sigh, she looks at the now empty holotable.   
Man, this day just gets better and better. 

What did she expect with her luck really? 

A squeeze on her shoulder makes her look into Ahsoka's bright blue eyes.   
She can always find solace in those two ocean orbs.

"At least we got the message out. That's something." She says in hopes of easing her friend's troubled mind. 

That does bring a smile to the human's lips, knowing they'll get back up, hopefully soon. 

Straightening up, Tabby pats her hand.   
"You're right."

"In any case, my apologies, young ones." Master Kenobi Interrupts the sullen silence, getting the padawans' attention. "It's time for a proper introduction."   
He proposes politely, his Coruscanti accent only adding to his seemingly endless propriety, and steps closer to the girls. 

They both give their best grins and straighten their backs. 

"We're the new Padawan learners."   
Ahsoka starts, the excitement she had practically glowed with on their way here returning full force, strong enough in the Force swelling around her being for everyone to feel.

"I'm Ahsoka Tano."   
She introduces herself with a small respectful bow.  
"And I am Tabitha Flux."   
The other girl continues, bowing as a formal greeting.

"Two padawans? Didn't you request just one?"   
Skywalker inquires of his former master, emphasizing his sentence by holding up one finger.   
"I did."   
He confirms, with a slight shake of his head but a knowing smirk playing at his lips.   
"That would be me, Master." Tabby steps forward slightly.   
"I was assigned to you, Master Kenobi."   
"And I was assigned to Master Skywalker."   
Ahsoka announces, pointing at the now very surprised and baffled Jedi with one of her slender fingers.  
"What?! No, no, no, no, no."   
He repeats in disbelief, looking at his old master for help who appears to be enjoying his former apprentice's upset reaction far too much.

"There must be some mistake. He's the one who wanted the padawan."   
He points accusingly at the other Jedi Master.   
Tabitha raises two questioning eyebrows and gestures to herself. The Jedi Knight only shoots her a small glare before turning his attention back to Ahsoka. 

"Master Yoda was very specific. I'm assigned to Anakin Skywalker and Tabby to Obi-Wan Kenobi, and they are to supervise our Jedi training." Ahsoka speaks calmly but with a fierceness behind it, that'll probably match Master Skywalker's own.   
That is probably why Master Yoda chose her to be his padawan. They're very alike from what Tabitha can tell at this moment.   
She's more than glad, she's not the one chosen to be his apprentice.   
She'd never be able to keep up with him and his temper.

Anakin Skywalker is someone whose level she can never reach in her life. Not that she'd able to reach Obi-Wan Kenobi's level but it feels like she'll learn more from someone who is calmer and more collected than the brash Jedi Knight.   
Ahsoka's pretty much the opposite, so the two should be fine once they've worked past the initial stage. 

Hopefully...

Master Kenobi can't seem to suppress the smug smirk at the uncomfortableness that befalls his former padawan after Ahsoka's forceful declaration. 

"But that doesn't make any sense."   
Master Skywalker proceeds to say before being cut off by Master Kenobi.   
"We'll have to sort this out later. It won't be long before those droids figure out a way around our cannons."   
Skywalker looks like he still wants to protest but one pointed look from the ginger-haired man causes him to deflate and let out a defeated sigh. 

"I'll check on Rex in the lookout post."   
The Jedi Knight is just about to walk away when his former master stops him again.   
"You'd better take her with you." Kenobi walks over to Ahsoka and gives her a small pat on the back.   
Master Skywalker doesn't turn around but he stops momentarily, long enough for the younger girl to catch up.   
Not quite an invitation but it's something, Tabitha guesses. 

The Togruta gives the older man a smile which he reciprocates and trails after her new master eagerly.

Tabitha looks after her best friend for a little while until Master Kenobi puts a warm hand on her shoulder and says.  
"Don't worry, she'll be fine." Tabby flashes him a small grin.  
"In all honesty, I'm more worried about him."   
Her new master -can you believe it!- chuckles lowly, turns on his heels and starts walking in the opposite direction with a grace only a man of his experience can maintain. 

"Come on, young padawan. Let's check on Commander Cody and the men."   
"Right behind you, Master."  
Tabitha quickly falls in step beside him, more delighted than she's ever been, to be honest.

She's officially a padawan now.


	2. Chapter 2

After a quick, superficial tour of the main part of the base, meaning the commando central and the location of their diminishing supplies and weapons, and the quite comfortable small talk that had taken place in the periods of silence between walking from one thing to the other, the apprentice and her new master now draw closer to a group of clones near the debris-lined borders of the Republic's temporary set up base. 

Tabitha's eyes are directly attracted to the jet black blasters they are carrying.   
Military standard in what is now established as the GAR, the Grand Army of the Republic. 

An army the Republic and Jedi just recently found out they had and that was instantly used for a war the soldiers had not started.   
Well, not of their own choice, at least. 

Did these men even have a say in this? Did they get to choose to fight for a government they knew close to nothing about and weren't even part of before the conflict between the Republic and the Separatists? 

Are they even considered men by republic civilians and senators? Or just property? Tools to use for the Senate's dirty work until they become obsolete. 

Since they were discovered, the girl has heard quite the disturbing things regarding clones.  
How, legally, they have no rights because they were not born like other living beings and how some people even think they're only mindless droids programmed to fight and kill, with no free will of their own. 

Is that really true?   
She hadn't been able to do research on it but she deeply hopes it's not.  
That would be unfair and just plain cruel. To use someone alive with feelings and a mind of their own and then think of them as stupid pawns in a much greater chess game. 

Perhaps that's what they all are, even the Jedi, pawns to be used and sacrificed when needed by the Senate, weapons to be aimed at their adversaries. 

In comparison to the much larger chess tournament going on between two fundamentally different governments, this battle, this chessboard, Christophsis, is nothing of great importance. 

Not in the great scheme of things anyway. 

The world itself and the people on it hold more significance than some bad chess-connected metaphors that are supposed to make the war understandable for her but only succeed in her questioning it even more. 

Tabitha's not even sure why she tries to understand.   
War rarely has any decent reasons. 

Back to the way cooler blasters and away from darker turns her mind seemingly wants to take today. 

When did she even become such a poet? Definitely not yesterday, so how fast can someone change? Because this change in her thinkings felt pretty damn fast. 

Well, better not let Ahsoka know. Endless teasing would only ensue. 

Hopefully, the other girl's doing okay with Master Skywalker. The man seemed on edge when they departed and her best friend contains the extraordinary ability to push people over the mentioned edge. 

Ah, what is she talking about? Ahsoka's dogged persistence will be just perfect to get through that thick skull of Anakin Skywalker. (Don't let anyone ever know she even thought that or she's gonna get onto trouble.)

However, the blasters…  
('Kriffing hell!' What is going on with me?!')

Most of the armored men carry DC-15S, the blaster carbine variant of BlasTech's DC-15A blaster rifle which she could also spy on one or two troopers. The blaster carbines are easier to handle than their bulkier cousins, which in turn have more range and power, but both of those weapons' gas cartridges last for around 500 shots.   
Pretty powerful weapons when carried by experienced clone troopers, capable of piercing heavy armor and cause great casualties on their opponent's side. 

So cool!

She'd like to learn how to shoot with them, maybe she can ask one of the clones to teach her when they have the time. 

Actually, Tabitha knows how to shoot, has taught herself mostly because the Jedi Temple does not own a shooting range and has no one to teach it.

For what, other younglings always implored skeptically when she complained about that fact.   
Yeah, for what? They have their lightsabers, don't they?   
But they can't always rely on their lightsabers, sometimes a blaster is more efficient and quicker to handle. 

Isn't it better to have more weapons in stock in case you need them? To know what to do when out of your natural element? 

Tabitha certainly believes so. 

When the Jedi are within a few-feet-radius of the group, the soldiers perk up attentively, the heads of the ones sitting down snapping up and the one's not facing them turning around in one swift movement that almost has Tabitha envying their precise coordination. 

The seated ones not quite scramble to their feet while the others already stand at attention, arms pressed tight against their bodies with their rifles in hand, backs straight and helmeted heads held high. 

The open posture shows off their white armor with markings on them in a golden hue that is foreign to her.   
She's seen gold and orange and yellow, has seen them in a hundred different shapes, but that particular color seems to be a combination of all of them. 

Although what catches her curiosity, even more, are the scrapes and dents that some armors are decorated with and the almost pristine conditions the others are in.   
Some of those clones don't even have markings on them. Just shiny white armor plates, plain and simple. 

They have just been sent in, Tabby realizes suddenly. 

The ones with the shiny armor came straight from Kamino, their homeworld, to their first battle, just like her.   
She stumbled straight from the temple into a war zone. From sheltered safety into danger in the span of hours. 

Despite all their differences, something's they do appear to have in common. 

"At ease."   
The newly assigned padawan is so captivated by the armored soldiers in front of her that she barely suppresses the surprised jerk when the not even harsh command comes from the Jedi general next to her, in lieu of greeting apparently. 

While Tabitha tenses slightly in startled alarm, the clones relax gradually, backs slouching in what must be a much more comfortable position. 

Then several T-shaped visors glance down at her (she's not big, even smaller than average some would say), not too conspicuously as to not be disrespectful but the girl still notices and almost shrinks under the scrutiny and newfound attention. 

She's never liked that. 

One clone wearing an advanced helmet with the ability to see longer distances, small antennas attached to his armor, a floodlight and the same golden stripes as probably the rest of his battalion, steps up to Obi-Wan - can she address him like that now?-, awaiting orders. 

"Cody, how are the men?   
Obi-Wan asks, throwing a pointed look at some of the more battered troopers.   
"They're managing, General. As long as the Separatists don't throw everything they got at us I think we can manage but I'd prefer to get some new troops here and get the others taken care of properly, just to be on the safe side." Commander Cody, presumably, estimates before he too glimpses down at her, expression hidden under the improved and customized helmet. 

"I assume this is the padawan you requested, General?" The commander inquires carefully, the tone of his voice covered but the slight voice modulator in his helmet. 

"Ah, yes. Cody, I'd like you to meet Tabitha Flux, my new padawan." 

Okay, being called a padawan by your master is a pretty darn good feeling, she has to admit.   
Being a padawan, in general, makes her feel incredible, invincible.  
As if she could take on the whole galaxy.

Straightening, Tabby puts on her best smile and clasps her hands behind her back. 

Cody, too, straightens up and salutes her personally.   
"Commander Cody, at your service, Commander." 

The instant rank she acquires before even doing anything to earn it, makes her feel ecstatic and queasy at the same time.   
She shouldn't outrank a clone commander with way more experience than her only because she's a Jedi Padawan. 

This is her first time out on the field, she knows nothing about it. Nothing practical anyway.   
She knows how to block a fatal shot, how to swing her lightsabers correctly, how to use the Force but she's only ever used her abilities in training and simulations. 

She thinks all those things but voices none of them.   
Her opinion wouldn't change anything, sadly, because 'she's only a child and does not understand military and political choices.'  
Right.

Despite her thoughts, the girl keeps her smile in place and returns her own salute. "Pleasure to meet you, Commander." 

When she lets her hand fall from her brow, she extends it to him (as a sign of equality. Fight her if you think otherwise.), causing the clone commander to look at it with… maybe uncertainty before taking it and shaking it firmly. 

"But please, feel free to call me Tabitha, or Tabby for short." 

Cocking his head to the side slightly, he inclines his head, seemingly still a little bit unsure.

He's probably not used to it.

The Kaminoans most likely drilled all those military rules and regulations into the clones skulls, so addressing someone with a higher rank or a Jedi by their first name must be weird and hard to adjust to. 

Perhaps she can help them with it. 

She'd like to do that!

"You got it, Commander. You can call me Cody if you wish." 

Tabitha grins up at the man brightly, happy with the answer, and nods eagerly, hands retreating behind her back again.

"Nice to see you two getting along so well." Obi-Wan comments from beside them, a dry grin on his bearded face. 

Only now she even remembers her master standing there. 

Yet again, a faint blush dusts her cheeks and she's not even sure why.   
Maybe it's because of all the attention she gets from every person around them or maybe there's no real explanation, so she ducks her head to hide the redness in her pale cheeks, because it's so super obvious and so embarrassing, and smiles softly to herself. 

Cody chuckles quietly at his superior's comment and the girl's reaction to it but stays silent until Tabitha regains her bearings. 

"Cody, why don't you give our new arrival here a rundown of the base and the operations here while I inspect the outer defenses before the next wave of droids hits?" Obi-Wan asks of his trusted clone commander.   
"Can do, sir." The experienced soldier replies seriously, hidden eyes shifting back to the young girl whose own round emerald eyes are now glancing between them intently, interest piqued at the mention of a tour around the place. 

"Good."  
The Jedi Master turns to his new padawan, large green eyes peering into icy blue ones with more life than Obi-Wan's seen in a person in quite a few years.   
They're expressive, show him the excitement and delight the girl feels and the endless supply of curiosity sealed behind the confinements of her body. 

'She's definitely a curious one.' He makes a mental note to himself.   
The more he knows the better he can teach Tabitha. 

Some instinctive part of him wants to reach out and ruffle the young girl's raven black, shoulder-length hair.   
Maybe it's the lively eyes or the young age (twelve if he's not mistaken. Too young to fight in a war) or just her eagerness, that reminds him of a certain blond boy, that makes him want to do it but in the end, he refrains to do so and only puts a solid hand on her small shoulder. 

"Now, don't get our dear commander into too much trouble, Little One.   
I still need him." Tabitha's master quips, smirking and winking at the commander, before walking away gracefully. 

While Tabitha frowns after her Master because of both the comment and the nickname, Cody just snorts and shakes his head in amused exasperation. 

"Let's go then. Something, in particular, you want to see,... Tabitha?" 

Deciding to give up on trying to figure out the sudden use of a nickname (she knows she's small but really 'Little One?!) and not bothering with the weird statement, Tabitha refocuses on her new friend? Acquaintance?

Ah, whatever. 

Don't think she hasn't recognized the reluctance in him before using her name but he did use it so that counts as a win in her book.   
He'll get used to it at some point, once they've known each other longer than just a few minutes.   
And like she already mentioned, she's happy to help.

That's what Jedi do!

But Jedi business aside,….

"Can I see the artillery cannons, please?" 

__________________________

"Wow…." Tabitha puffs out in complete awe of the enormous machinery standing now only a couple of feet away from her, letting out a soft, long-winded whistle at the sight of their complex design.   
"This, " she says, addressing Cody "is so awesome!" 

"Quite the beauty's, aren't they?" The clone replies, silent laughter contained behind a professional mask that is showing cracks in the form of a small quirk of his lips that is thankfully invisible to everyone but him.   
"These are-"   
"AV-7 Antivehicle artillery cannons. Heavy ordnance with impressive long-range capabilities and the power to take out both tanks and infantry and the rate of fire to match it." 

"That's… right." Cody nods after staring at the padawan for a few seconds, stunned. 

When Tabitha turns around to look at him, confused by his sudden change of tone, she realizes how rudely she's just interrupted him and how that kind of knowledge about weapons must come across from a child. 

Her eyes grow as big as saucers and she has to keep herself from not spewing some expletives that a twelve-year-old proper padawan should not know.   
('Thank Ahsoka for that, Master.')

Sheepishly, she rubs the back of her neck, glancing back and forth between the giant cannons and the commander.   
"Sorry! I didn't mean to I just- Weapons are kinda my thing, you know, big and small, and these" she gestures to the artillery in front of them "I have never been able to see this closely before, so I couldn't resist." 

"Well, I'm always happy to oblige, Comman- ah, Tabitha" He quickly corrects himself. "But, and I don't mean this as an insult, I don't know many Jedi that like to learn about these kinds of weapons." 

Sighing, Tabitha keeps her big jade eyes trained on the cannons before them, crossing her arms in front of her chest and shaking her head in disappointment.

At who?   
The Jedi, for creating principles not all of them could uphold, for teaching their students in limited weapons usage, for making her such a nerd under the younglings. 

"Yeah, I don't either." 

Unnoticed by the girl, Cody's posture softens at the yearning manner of her answer and he marches over to her, putting one gloved hand atop of her shoulder, to spend some comfort. 

"Stop ogling!" A very familiar female voice suddenly half-shouts from somewhere next to them, interrupting the quiet that has settled between the two. 

Rolling her eyes and smirking a bit at her best friend's antics, Tabitha turns to where the voice came from, Cody doing the same, although more surprised. 

A new clone without his helmet is walking up to them, showing off his shaved blond head that has every clones usual traits, defined cheekbones, strong jaw, and brown eyes.   
His armor does not sport Cody's golden paint but a navy blue one.   
Different battalions then, or at least squads. 

A black-blue shoulder pauldron rests on his shoulder, marking him as probably a bearer of a higher rank. 

And, of course, walking next to him is none other than Ahsoka Tano. 

"I am not ogling, 'Soka." Tabitha pouts, defiantly crossing her arms and throwing a mock glare at the other girl. 

"Yes, you are, Tabby."  
"Shut up. I'm not doing this again."   
"Then stop ogling."   
"....."  
"....."  
"I hate you."  
"You love me."  
"Augh." 

"I take it, you two know each other?" The clone who Tabby has not yet been introduced to implores, one eyebrow raised in question and amusement.   
Both padawans answer simultaneously.  
"Yes."  
"Unfortunately." 

That sarcastic reply earns Tabitha a quite painful punch to the shoulder, predictably.   
"We're best friends." Ahsoka boasts, grinning at the painful wince coming to her friend's face.   
"Ouch…." 

Cody and the other clone look at each other in what has to be bewildered amusement before Cody audibly clears his throat of barely contained laughter. 

The only other Jedi he has seen behaving like this are General Skywalker and Kenobi and they're a force to be reckoned with whenever they get together.   
Two more are gonna be hell to deal with. 

He can't say if he dislikes the idea or is actually okay with his fate.  
It's a great change of scenery from battles and his brothers sometimes.   
And it's quite fun to watch.

"Well, okay then. Tabitha, this is Rex, Captain of the 501st. Rex, this is Tabitha Flux, General Kenobi's new padawan." Cody introduces them, followed by Captain Rex saluting Tabitha for a split second then relaxing again. 

"Pleasure to meet you, Captain." Tabitha greets him politely, bowing respectfully. 

"So Tabby, your master drop you off, too?" Ahsoka interrupts their little introduction in a tone that just reeks of annoyance and prompts Tabitha to shift her baffled gaze to the other girl. 

"Huh?" 

Apparently, Cody is just as perplexed but Rex -she'll just call him that for now- is left puffing out a gust of air and moving past the other clone-padawan-pair to walk further down the line of cannons, beckoning the other three to follow.   
"Let's talk while continuing the tour, at least." 

__________________________

"Wait, General Skywalker? I thought he wasn't taking on any padawans."   
Rex nods at his friend.   
"Yes, he wasn't going to, somehow he still ended up with one." 

Next to Tabitha, Ahsoka starts grumbling under her breath angrily, crossing her arms tightly above her chest, nails digging into her orange-toned skin. 

Quickly, Tabitha leans closer to the thirteen-year-old, putting one of her smaller hands above Ahsoka's taut one, squeezing lightly.

Seems like Ahsoka isn't dealing with this so offhandedly as she wants everyone to think.  
"You okay, 'Soka?" The younger girl inquires of her best friend, voice practically dripping with worry. 

Cornflower blue eyes snap up from where they have been staring at the floor, blinking owlishly at Tabitha.   
Faux indifference is coating hidden uncertainty like a greasy oil, making everyone who doesn't know the Togruta well, believe she really doesn't care about her new master's reaction.

But she does and she still never gives up. She toughens up and faces her problems, squashing her doubts under pretended feelings. 

Sometimes, when Tabitha faces her own problems and finds herself doubting, she is jealous of that ability, of her friend for being stronger. 

But smothering your qualms never makes them vanish. 

Tabitha knows rejection, has witnessed it early on in her life, but people deal with it differently.   
Ahsoka deals by toughening up, Tabitha deals by worrying and ignoring. 

Huge difference, isn't it?

Tabitha feels the need to hug the older girl but she thinks that maybe it's unwanted.   
Ahsoka doesn't hate open displays of affection, she hates showing weakness in public.  
It would confirm what some people seem to think sometimes. That they shouldn't be out here yet.   
And a comforting hug after a remark about her new master definitely counts as a weakness for her. 

"I'm okay." Ahsoka whispers back quietly, loosening her rigid fingers and uncrossing her arms. 

She's probably not but, you see, that shield that is building up behind her eyes just now is unbreachable until Ahsoka doesn't want it to be and that isn't now. 

So, Tabitha lets it slide reluctantly and focuses back on the clones who are talking about a very different topic now. 

"...you saw that." Cody ends his sentence, smirk evident even in his modulated voice.   
His lookalike friend chuckles and nods his head, clearly agreeing with whatever the other said, muffling the sound slightly with his hand.   
Even Ahsoka seems to have kept a better track of the conversation if her delighted cackling is anything to go by.   
Suspicious and confused, Tabby eyes every one of them, looking for any sign of the current topic. 

That cackle never means anything good!

Tabitha rakes through her head trying to find a way to ask about what exactly their talk has been about without revealing that she hadn't followed the conversation when Ahsoka's cackling ceases. 

"Force, if you only knew. She's always been like that.   
I think growing up in the temple where we don't get any practical insight into any other weapons except our lightsabers has made her go all geeky over every weapon she now sees. Give her one and chance is she'll keep and study it." 

'Oh, so I'm the topic…' 

Throwing a fleeting look of betrayal to Cody who must have initiated the change of topic, she swivels around to glare at her best friend, two gems shimmering angrily in the bright sunlight of Christophsis.   
Ahsoka is unimpressed upon noticing her glare and the 'frown' on her face though and just waves her off, snorting. 

"Oh, knock off the pout, Tabby. We both know it's true. And you know I don't say this to insult you or anything. Your eagerness is extremely adorable even." Ahsoka says, grinning playfully when the human breaks off eye contact in embarrassment and starts grumbling under her breath about Ahsoka making her look bad, not the other way around. 

"It's definitely not a bad thing. You certainly know your way around, Tabitha." Cody cuts in, patting her shoulder approvingly and making Tabitha stop her grumbling and smile shyly ahead.  
"Have you ever learned how to shoot, though? Now, I know the Jedi don't exactly teach that kind of stuff to their padawans but having a bigger arsenal at your disposal is a great advantage, so I think many of the men, myself included, would be ready to tutor you if you want to?"  
It's more of a question than a statement, an extended olive branch awaiting to be accepted.  
Tabitha doesn't even need to think twice, visibly perking up at Cody's suggestion and nodding before even speaking.   
"Really? That would be amazing! I would like that very much. Thank you, Cody."

The addressed commander is a bit taken aback by the immediate eager acceptance of his offer and the way it seems to have made her day better by a tenfold.   
The girl is practically bouncing up and down on her feet and there's a slight skip in her step now, the brightness of her eyes now almost blinding.   
That, accompanied by what must be the most radiant smile in the galaxy, makes a warm and comfortable fire erupt in his chest, encompassing his whole body in a matter of seconds.   
His skin feels as comfortable as his armor, his mind is at peace and everything feels okay for about one second when he looks down upon a girl who appears to have no worries.  
('Not yet anyway.')  
This feeling, too, surprises him. It's the same sensation he feels when he observes his men, his brothers, after battle. When survivors embrace each other, when friends joke, looking past blood and grime and death and just laugh.   
He feels the same for a girl he barely just met.   
Somehow the glaringly obvious innocence of a twelve-year-old girl (he had cautiously asked before arriving at the AVs. Isn't twelve too young?! Some of the vods are older.) crashed into him like a thousand tidal waves on Kamino and slipped through the tiniest cracks in his shields, in what? Half an hour? 

Force….  
Well, what could go wrong? 

When the first wave of ecstasy has washed over Tabitha, the girl realizes she should probably inform him of her self-made shooting sessions.   
Unconsciously, one hand reaches up to rub her neck, again, brushing some strands of her black hair out of her face in the process.   
"I do actually know how to shoot, but only with a regular blaster. I kinda taught myself a little." Tabby admits quietly, causing both clones to glance at her presumably questioningly.   
In Cody's case, it's hard to tell.

Ahsoka though throws one arm around the girl's shoulder and rolls her eyes.   
"Yeah, right. If sneaking out of the temple in the middle of the night to slink into the clones' shooting range counts as teaching yourself." 

Ahsoka's smirk turns into a grimace when an elbow digs itself into her ribs.   
"Shut up!" Tabitha whisper-shouts to her best friend, throwing a tiny pointed look at the two clones walking next to them. 

"So that was you." Rex states in a tone that conveys either fascination or the exact opposite, eyebrows raising and knitting together.   
Tabitha cringes at the ambiguous tone and posture and the mysteriously affirmative hum filtering through Cody's helmet.   
'Kriff.'   
The last thing she needs is a lecture at the very beginning of her apprenticeship and getting onto the clones' bad side.   
Unlike Ahsoka, Tabitha indeed cares about what other people think of her.

Oh, Force. Worse would be if they told her master about it.

'Kriffing kriff, Ahsoka. If your loose mouth fucked this up I will kill you.' 

"I always asked myself who could get in the range without anyone noticing and why nothing was ever missing. Now I know." The blonde shakes his head, puffing out air through his nose that sounds like a breathy kind of laugh. 

Silence only follows. Silence and the slow thumping of their footsteps on the scorched, crystal-blue floor.   
The hush keeps her on edge, expecting… something, really but nothing comes. Their little group just slowly continues down the seemingly endless line of cannons.   
(Not endless, not even that long. They just haven't been walking for that long.)

Cody seems to notice her perplexity after a few moments, probably because Tabitha's not good at hiding anything, and tries to reassure her.   
"Don't worry, Commander. Nothing happened and everything's still accounted for. We're not gonna do anything about it. Your secret's safe with us." 

Tabitha legitimately breathes out in relief although the lack of action still confuses her a bit, enough for the sudden use of rank to escape her notice.

'Don't look a gift horse in the mouth.'

"So you know the basics of using a blaster?" Cody questions curiously, followed by an affirmative hum from the girl.   
"Well then, just tell me when you wanna start and I'll show a few other tricks."   
Tabitha beams up at him, every ounce of confusion vanishing in the face of an opportunity she's been longing for her whole life. 

The thought of finally officially learning how to use a blaster, multiple blasters, makes her giddy, so much she thinks she'll bounce off the ground so high a fighter could hit her, and she quickly throws one look back at the line of artillery that they have now passed. 

Ahsoka too shifts her gaze from Tabitha to the cannons, smiling faintly at her friend's simple, innocent attitude.   
No matter how much she teases Tabby about her obsession with weapons, she wouldn't want her to change one tiny bit.   
Tabitha is Tabitha and that's everything she ever needs to be. 

When her light blue eyes finally settle on the cannons and for the first time really take in their design and placement, a small frown settles on her face when after a few seconds of thinking she takes note of an improvement they could make.  
She turns to Rex who had been watching Cody and Tabby converse just as silently as Ahsoka had been, at once, leaving Tabitha to memorizing every single screw of the cannons if she wants to (she probably could).  
"Rex, have you thought about moving the line back? They'd have better coverage that way." Ahsoka chips in thoughtfully when they stop walking further down the base's perimeter and gather in a small circle. 

Tabitha, who had overheard Ahsoka's discovery while glancing at the cannons, squints her eyes at them in thought, then casts her scrutinizing gaze around their surroundings. 

The artillery only a few feet behind them, debris specifically placed to spend cover around the perimeter and a couple of clones scurrying from one place to another.   
No useful cover for their own heavy battery where they're standing right now but when moved back, the intact skyscrapers could lend some good cover and the relocation would put more space between them and the droids when they'll try to push through.

And they will, soon.   
Don't ask how she knows, she just does.  
Tabitha stopped questioning the Force's ways a couple of years ago and just goes with it, trusts it to guide her when she strays from its path.   
Poetic, isn't it? 

"Ahsoka's right." The human intervenes seriously before one of the clone officers could reply. "Not only would these buildings cover our cannons but the droids would have to push further to get to them which in turn would give us more time to put them down."   
She underlines her words and the strategy behind them by gesturing and pointing into the vague directions. 

"Good suggestion." Cody starts carefully, seemingly choosing his words deliberately, looking over to Rex a little. "We have thought about doing that but..."  
"General Skywalker thinks they're good where they are." Rex finishes, obviously questioning his superior's assessment but trusting his general's instincts nonetheless.

Why would Master Skywalker do such a foolish thing?   
Moving the line back would give them much more advantages than letting them stay where they are, so why the hell didn't he?  
What is he planning?   
There has to be a plan, right? He wouldn't choose a clearly worse strategy without a plan, would he?   
That would be stupid and reckless!   
(It's Skywalker what is she expecting, really.)

But no matter from what perspective Tabitha looks at it, she can't see a better reason behind the open placement of the guns other than that their range would go further down the enemy lines. 

As she rakes through every part of her logical and strategical thinking to find what Master Skywalker has long found, her head unconsciously tips up to look at the soothing blue-red sky, at the same time purposely ignoring the conversation between Ahsoka and the two clones about the chain of command and experience. 

Wait a minute!  
Red?!  
Christophsis sky isn't red. Maybe when the sun sets but it's the middle of the day, that's impossible. 

Quickly, her eyes focus on the sky again, all thoughts about strategic objectives and plausible plans vanishing into thin air before she even fully grasps what the hell is going on.   
For a moment, Tabitha thinks she hallucinated it, that with the start of her apprenticeship her mind went crazy, but when her focus rests solely there on the sky, they're still there, really there.   
Red ripples tearing through the crystal sky, colors blurring together making it look like the atmosphere itself is bleeding stark red. 

However, the further her eyes trail upward the fainter the red is. So, slowly her gaze travels downward until her confused gaze finally settles on the horizon.   
Which is painted crimson red!

'Oh, kark!' 

Clumsily, Tabitha reaches for Cody's right arm, wide eyes transfixed on the enormous red energy dome growing bigger and bigger on the far horizon.  
How had they not noticed that before?! It's karking huge and they should have heard the energy build up and discharge! 

When her hand connects with the dented metal of Cody's arm guards, her slim fingers wrap around his forearm and she tugs at it in order to catch his attention. 

"Cody, I think we have a problem." The young girl announces troubled, worrying her bottom lip anxiously. 

Abruptly, Ahsoka and Rex stop discussing Rex's view of the chain of command when hearing Tabitha's worried statement and look back at the tense girl who still hasn't taken her eyes off the dome. Cody does the same but quickly follows Tabby's line of sight when he notices that her eyes are almost more black than green.   
The other padawan and clone follow suit, ensuing in two identical groans from the clone officers.  
"Great, just what we need." Cody all but exclaims (it's close). 

"What is that?" Ahsoka asks when no one seems to want to elaborate. Tabitha is the one who answers. "A ray shield."   
Suddenly, Ahsoka's head snaps around and she looks at Tabitha as if she just proved the impossible. The Togruta may not have as much knowledge on weapons and that kind of stuff but she knows that with a ray shield it makes their own AV-7s useless against the Separatists. 

"This is going to make things damn near impossible." Rex sighs dauntingly, face morphing into a grim frown.   
"Well, little ones, if you want some experience it looks like your about to get plenty." The captain tells them while the group watches the ray shield's barrier get just a tiny speck bigger, no trace of sarcasm in his rough voice. 

After another wasted second of observing, Tabitha starts taking a few steps back into the direction of the artillery cannons and because of her grasp on Cody's forearm, she pulls it with her, causing the commander to stumble a bit when he's jerked out of his standing stance.   
"Come on, we need to go find our masters. Let's go!" She proposes, tugging at Cody's arm yet again to make the urgency in her 'command' known. 

All three of her companions snap to attention and start sprinting after the twelve-year-old who had already turned tail and ran into the direction of the command center, praying for one of the Jedi to be there.


	3. Chapter 3

Not long after they arrived at the command center, Obi-Wan and Anakin did too, the somber mood morphing their faces into scowls.   
In a nick of time, everyone on and around the base discovered and understood the ever-growing threat of the ray shield coming straight for them. 

So here they are now, all five of them plus a few other clone officers and sergeants standing around a large holomap of the battlefield in order to come up with an efficient plan to attain the strategic high ground again. 

Tabitha's standing between her master and Ahsoka, frowning at the red image of the ray shield.  
"The shield generator is somewhere in this area." Her master says, pointing to the center of the bright energy dome captivating most of Tabitha's attention. "They're slowly increasing the diameter, keeping it just ahead of their troops." 

"Our heavy cannons are going to be useless against that." Rex states matter-of-factly, gaze averted from the map and directed to the two generals.   
"Close range combat seems the only choice we have." Cody points out. 

Before the meeting, the commander had taken off his helmet for the first time since Tabby met him and at first, he looked pretty average for a clone.  
Brown eyes, dark hair, distinguished features.   
What threw her for a loop was when she caught sight of the scar running vertically down his tanned face, starting close to his hairline, curling around his eyebrow and missing his left eye by a hair's breadth before ending in a spot on his cheek below that same eye.   
Wherever and however he got that, it must have hurt like all nine sith hells. He's very lucky he didn't lose the eye. 

Back to the problem at hand.  
(She'll ask him some other time. Mark her as a nosy little brat.)

A pensive silence has set in after Cody spoke, all of them deep in thought trying to come up with a helpful idea with which to save their own skins.   
It is broken by Obi-Wan, who had been broodingly stroking his beard before. "As they get closer, we could try to lure them into the buildings. That might level the playing field a bit." The ginger proposes, gesturing to a couple of larger buildings on the map.   
His padawan's frown deepens upon hearing the suggestion. Her right-hand moves up, curling into a loose fist and pressing against her chin out of habit. She always does it when she's thinking about a solution for a difficult topic.   
The idea isn't bad, exactly the opposite, it's really good but it leaves out quite a few key factors. The tanks for example. 

"But it's only a partial solution for our situation. The tanks would still be able to move forward and take out our cannons once the shield reached them. And then, nothing would stop them from blowing the buildings we occupy to kingdom come, with us in them." Tabitha voices her concerns, sounding more confident than she ever thought she'd sound in a situation like this.   
Obi-Wan purses his lips and nods, seeing where the girl is coming from. No matter how many infantry troops they take out, as long as the ray shield and the tanks are still intact they'll lose. And not just the battle but the entire planet. 

The hand that pressed against her chin now runs through her shoulder-length hair nervously.   
What else could they do? 

"If the shield is going to be such a problem, why don't we just take it out?" Ahsoka asks out of the blue, acting as if that action would be a cakewalk.   
For the first time, Tabitha tears her eyes away from the holomap and looks at Ahsoka while explaining. "That would be the smarter thing to do, yes, but…"   
She cuts her sentence off with a sigh when she spots the twin sparks of determination lighting up Ahsoka's clear eyes. Oh, gods, Tabby knows where this is going and she doesn't like it one bit.   
"Easier said than done." Cody finishes Tabitha's incomplete sentence, ripping her from her reverie.  
"Right. Which means someone." The human girl glances at Ahsoka out of the corner of her eye, praying to the Force that no one will agree with this because it is way more dangerous than it sounds and she just knows that Ahsoka will volunteer for it, for whatever reason this time.   
"Would have to sneak past the shield and behind enemy lines to deactivate or, better yet, destroy the shield generator." Tabitha makes sure to convey just how much she dislikes this idea which seemingly does not bother Ahsoka in the least. 

A loud noise of someone clearing their throat draws all of their attention to the Anakin Skywalker.   
"I for one…"  
Clearly, the knight is hesitant to continue but he does although a tad bit quieter than before. "agree with Snips."  
Immediately, Tabitha's eyebrows all but retreat into her hairline. Not because she didn't expect Skywalker to go with it and back up his padawan (that could be a good sign) but because of the hilarious nickname.

She throws Ahsoka one look that says enough.   
"Out of all of them, you get Snips? What'd you do?"  
The only response she gets is a subtle glare to which she has to suppress a giggle. 

Before their little staring conversation can escalate any further, Anakin speaks again, louder thankfully. "Someone has to get to that shield generator and destroy it."   
Tabitha really wants to disagree with that but she can't. It may be dangerous however it's their only chance. In this battle, the Republic's cannons and the Separatists' shield are the crucial key factors. Whichever side loses theirs first, loses the entire battle and therefore the planet. 

"Well, then you two can surely tiptoe through the enemy's lines and solve this particular problem together." Obi-Wan suggests, raising an eyebrow at his former apprentice in question. 

It's not the man who answers.   
"Can do, Master Kenobi." Ahsoka says cheerfully, attaining an exasperated eye roll and shake of the head from her best friend.   
"I decide what we do." Master Skywalker growls right after, looking at the Togruta with no small amount of annoyance. 

Obi-Wan chooses to defuse the situation by straight out ignoring it and continuing with his plan which appeared to have formed in his mind while they had been discussing Ahsoka's idea.   
"If Rex and I can engage them here" He points to a particular spot on the map, quite close to a building which is connected to the main street by a side road. "You two might have a chance to get through their lines undetected here." He points to another spot further down, closer to the shield and thus closer to the enemy forces.   
And there are dozens of them, mind you, Hundreds, if not thousands of battle droids and multiple lines of AATs, each as deadly as the other.   
Tabitha had tried not to think about their overwhelming numbers, about the high possibility of losing or just one tank slipping through and wreaking havoc on their base.   
The thoughts make her nervous, afraid, which will ensue in mistakes so she won't think about it, she can't.

She physically shakes herself out of her thought just as Rex contributes his part to the plan.   
"They won't have much time. The droids far outnumber us, so our ability to street-fight is limited without the use of heavy cannons." The captain points to the blinking points that represent the moving tanks. "They'll march forward under the protection of their shield until they're right on top of our cannons and then they will blow them away. Just like Tabitha said earlier, after the cannons are gone, there will be nothing stopping them from wiping us out." He declares, gesturing to Tabitha shortly, who nods although still a bit abstractedly. 

"We'll figure out a way. Come on, Master!" Ahsoka quips optimistically and bounces a few steps backward, waving her master to follow. Master Skywalker does but not without complaining. "If we survive this, Snips, we're going to have a talk." 

Apropos surviving….  
Before Ahsoka could walk far, Tabitha snatches her arm out of the air to stop her, causing the older girl to look at her in surprised confusion. For a moment, Tabitha skims over her friend's face, her own mouth hanging open like a fish's, looking for the right words to plead with Ahsoka to stay alive out there and come back. 

Never before has Tabitha been face to face with the possibility of loss, never before has she been haunted by the feeling of crippling terror that accompanies watching someone you care for go where can't follow and help.   
(She may have said she's willing to fight through a war to achieve the rank of Jedi Knight, would do anything, except losing someone dear to her. Who would?)  
And exactly that kind of terror is tormenting her now. It had appeared deep in her stomach when Anakin had first agreed to Ahsoka's idea and it had bubbled up her throat while everyone had been busy discussing the newfound plan, choking her like her distress is a liquid.   
Now she just needs her friend to reassure her, so the choked up feeling goes away, so that she can breathe again and fight in this battle without keeling over from imagined asphyxiation.

Tabitha searches for any sign of fear in the girl's expression, to see if the weight of the situation is clear to her and that she'll be careful. Tabby does not doubt her friend's ability to take things seriously or her skills but her ability to act rationally and cautiously. Ahsoka's impulsive and sometimes overly confident so Tabitha sometimes has to be the voice of reason and talk some sense into her. 

With that in mind, the younger teen finally finds her voice again.   
"Be careful out there, okay?" She whispers, not wanting to disturb the meeting continuing in the background, staring straight into her counterpart's eyes without blinking.   
When she utters these five words, Ahsoka's confusion melts away, replaced by sympathy and a small reassuring smile, and she puts the hand of the arm Tabitha isn't holding onto the smaller girl's, grasping it in her own and squeezing consolingly.   
"I will be if you will too. Deal?"   
Tabitha sighs in relief, the choking sensation gradually dissipating after the unofficial promise to come back in one piece, she is able to hear in her tone. Being friends since crèche has its perks, being able to read each other better than anyone is one of them.  
Tabby smiles back at Ahsoka and unclenches her hand from around the other girl's arm, simply letting it fall limply to her side.   
"Deal." She murmurs, momentarily peeking over Ahsoka's shoulder to look at her master who is waiting for his padawan… patiently. No irritation at Tabitha's little interruption just patient indifference, possibly even understanding. 

Better not try her luck!

"Go. Before your master's heart rate rises more than it already has in the last hour and he dies of a heart attack or something. May the Force be with you." Tabitha says, nodding into Anakin's direction and taking a small step back to let her best friend go.   
Ahsoka glances over her own shoulder, nodding, and mutters a "May the Force be with you" as a farewell before hurrying over to her master's side. 

With one last look at the retreating backs of the other Jedi, Tabitha turns back to the meeting which is still going, feeling a bit better and barely catching the start of the next important topic.  
"General, what about the rest of our forces? We won't be able to fit into one building with everyone, so I guess Tabitha and I come into a different part of the plan, sir?" Cody raises the question, catching Tabby's full attention because she just now noticed that, yes, they have not been mentioned in any of the previous portions of the plan. She switches her attentive gaze to her master who is again stroking his beard in thought (a habit?) while nodding in response to Cody's question.   
"Quite right, Commander. We can't afford to let a single droid get past our lines and wreak havoc on our base of operations. On top of them possibly damaging the cannons with even their small arms fires, I don't think any of us are inclined to letting them get even close to our wounded."

Tabitha shudders at the sentence, goosebumps prickling across her skin and horror filling her head at even thinking about the slaughter that would follow if droids somehow got close to the wounded.   
Yeah, none of them want that, so they all nod in agreement. 

"Therefore, you, Cody, will be commanding the bulk of our forces on the main street to slow down the droids as much as you can while Ahsoka and Anakin focus on the shield generator."   
Cody doesn't hesitate, doesn't question, just nods at his General's orders.   
Then Obi-Wan turns to look at his padawan who tilts her head to the side curiously, like lothcat would, awaiting her own orders. 

The Jedi Master takes a mostly unnecessary step closer to the holomap, trying to quell the need to overthink this part of the plan again that her innocent enthusiasm has enlivened. He would like to keep Tabitha in close proximity to be able to make sure she stays alright during her first real-life battle. Obi-Wan trusts Cody and his men to look out for the girl and he puts good faith into her own capability to do just that but being able to keep an eye on her in battles where they're all balancing on the edge of life and death would make him feel much better than sending her out to deal with it on her own especially now where all experience she's gathered comes from simulations and training exercises.   
Sadly, if Obi-Wan decides to keep his padawan with him the plan won't work, at least not as smoothly and possibly with more casualties than necessary.   
So the original it is.

"Do you see this side road?" The ginger asks more as a rhetorical question, gesturing to the road connecting the building and main street, but Tabitha nods nonetheless, switching her gaze between the image of the road and him.   
"Once Rex and I provided the distraction necessary to get Ahsoka and Anakin through their lines undetected, we're going to be surrounded by droids and in the thick of the fight. Do you think you could help clear the path back to our troops?" The master inquires of Tabitha with an encouraging smile when he sees the uncertain surprise in her eyes.

Tabitha only looks up at him for a moment, swallowing hard as her heart begins to pound a bit faster in her chest, but in the wake of the encouragement from her master the tension that built up after being assigned such an important task right at the start bleeds away surprisingly. 

He trusts her! Believes in her!  
She can do this. She has to do this. For him, for the men, for the planet and most importantly, for herself! 

With newfound confidence, Tabitha straightens her back and breathes in and out slowly, looking up at Obi-Wan, eyes filled with certainty. 

"I do. I won't let you down, Master."


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *  
> " "=speech  
> ' '= monologue  
> // \\\=Force Bond

You know those moments where you just hate being right? Where you would have really wished you wouldn't have assumed anything?  
Yeah?  
Good because that's how Tabitha's feeling like right now, perched on top of one of the larger debris that the men are using as cover on the main street they have fought on for days.  
Bled on.  
Died on.

Just because the droids appear to be programmed to willingly walk into columns of open fire from their cannons, doesn't mean they have to be that suicidal.  
All the cover points have been arranged to ensure an open line of fire from every position without risking friendly fire and safety from the enemy's blaster bolts.  
Occupied by Tabitha is a boulder on the far left, the peak a couple of feet under one of the many outstanding window sills of a Christophsian building looming over the street. 

Now, someone might question why she hates being right at this particular moment and what has elicited her scorn.  
Well, that's easy to answer.  
Being goddamn right about the sickening smell of vicious destruction lying in the air of the streets, of the battlefield. 

How destruction smells like? Well, it stinks actually.  
Of dusty ash, charred metal and flesh, old blood and in this case, the pungent tang of oil.  
Together, these four factors create an odor that makes you want to vomit your guts out and then cut off your own nose voluntarily. 

It's one of the reasons Tabitha even climbed onto the boulder and away from the street. She wanted away from the piercing scent and get a little bit of fresher air, not that she's getting much up here. The rubble is barely seven or eight feet tall, not high enough to escape anything. 

Not the scent, and definitely not the Force. 

And escaping the Force sounds good right about now.  
That's the other reason.  
Being in a place where people have suffered and died for days and where it will continue now, the Force has somehow frozen. The steady flow she learned to welcome and focus on has turned into a stone, heavy and cold, crushing her and everyone else beneath it. Or at least she thinks everyone else, meaning Anakin, Ahsoka and Obi-Wan, can feel it. They haven't given any indication that they do but she hasn't really seen any of them here on the main street, maybe it's different everywhere else. It certainly felt different in the base.  
That has to be it because you can't ignore a sensation like that.  
Not when it's mentally smashing you. 

Groaning, Tabitha furiously rubs her hands over her face as if that somehow could wipe all the thoughts and overwhelming sensations away.  
Burying her face in her hands to block it out doesn't work either, so as she uncovers her face again and stares off into the distance, she directs her focus onto the shield's red barrier and dark points crawling closer behind said barrier. 

From this distance, the enemy forces look like small insects on a speeder's windshield.  
Or in this case, a large ray shield. 

Initially, they've been trying to punch through that shield with their AVs on the highest power setting which evidently failed, hence why they're now going through with her master's original plan.  
While the distraction team engages the droid army a bit further away to focus attention on them instead of Ahsoka and Master Skywalker, Cody commands the main part of their forces here on the street and Tabitha gets ready to go along the side to the road she needs to clear in order to get the distraction squad back to the main forces. 

Tabitha can see it from her vantage point, the road which is a bit ahead but with cover fire from the troops, she's certain she'll be able to reach it without problems.  
The other way around is going to be much more difficult.  
The side road is narrow and the access not well covered. Their only hope not to get shot immediately upon leaving is that the Separatists' attention is solely focused on the main battle and not their surroundings. 

"Hey, Tabitha!"  
Cody's loud voice yells up from the foot of the boulder, out of the blue, frightening the heck out of the girl for a second.  
What the hell is going on with her? She should have been able to feel his approach or at least his presence in the Force but she's been so determined not to focus on it, that she totally blended it out.  
Fortunately, she does not startle as violently as some other times when she's startled or ripped out of her thoughts, or she probably would've fallen down the whole boulder.  
After getting her bearings again, Tabitha looks down over her right shoulder and sees Cody standing there with his helmet neatly tucked under his right arm, gazing up at her.  
"You should probably get down from there. Separatists could be here any minute now, don't want to risk one of them shooting you down, Commander."  
The sentence makes Tabitha snap her head back around to the ray shield. The Separatists have indeed gotten significantly closer in the last minutes. So close she can now make out the distinct blurry shapes of the B1 battle droids, some B2 super battle droids, and the AATs.  
"Yeah, I'm coming!" Tabitha shouts back hastily, standing up from her cross-legged position and quickly jumping down, cushioning her landing with the Force to protect her joints from the impact on the hard ground. 

Landing in front of Cody, Tabitha straightens from her slightly hunched stance and looks up at him before spying nervously around the rubble to see the Separatists showing no signs of slowing.  
Before this, when she was just in her thoughts up there on the rock, she did not have time to feel the nervousness spreading into every part of her body but now, well, let's just say her nerves are creeping up on her. 

"You alright, Tabitha?" Cody asks after observing Tabitha uneasily fidgeting where she stands.  
All around men are doing last-minute checks on their blasters, sitting or crouching behind cover, but she only has eyes for their opponents and occasionally the side road ahead.  
Distractedly, Tabitha nods and responds. "Yeah, yeah. I'm good." She hopes the nervousness in her voice isn't audible.  
It is.  
"You don't look alright."  
'Of course.'  
Sighing disappointedly, Tabby shakes her head before looking up at the clone commander earnestly. "This" she gestures around them vaguely "is going to be my first real-life combat situation. Mistakes matter now. I'm just a little nervous, is all." Tabitha explains how she feels to the best of her ability, conveniently leaving out the part where the feeling of the Force around her makes her nauseous.  
Cody, to her misfortune, catches on.  
"That's not the only thing, is it?"  
Tabitha rolls her eyes more at herself than at Cody. What did she expect? He's a soldier trained to detect these kinds of things.  
"You're too perceptive, Commander, you know that?" She asks sarcastically, puffing out a gust of air which could be identified as a quiet mirthless laugh.  
Cody smirks down at her.  
"What can I say? I'm good at my job."  
The amused snort that bursts out of her, subsides as quickly as it came and morphs into a long-winded sigh.  
"No, that's not the only thing. But I don't know how to describe it to you. Has something to do with the Force." She mumbles a bit bitterly.  
Tabitha knows clones are intelligent and learn faster than 'normal' humans but she's seen first hand that even the oldest and most experienced Jedi Masters can't always describe the Force and how it makes you feel and she knows how confusing the Force is to most non-sensitive beings.  
And this inability to describe and characterize what the Force sometimes does, with words frustrates her.  
Others jump to conclusions because of it. 

Cody, though, doesn't let that stop him or her and just waits patiently as if they have all the time in the galaxy, as if their possible doom isn't marching towards them with mechanical precision.  
His brown eyes basically tell her "Try me."

Exactly that sense of calm from the experienced commander makes her talk in the end, spontaneously describe what she feels although it might make little to no sense. 

"Has anyone ever explained the Force to you?"  
With a shake of the head, Cody replies. "Vaguely."  
"Well, I'll give you the whole lesson some other time but essentially it's an energy field created by all living things. It flows around and through every being in the galaxy, plants and planets included."  
Cody doesn't seem as confused as Tabitha would have thought. He just listens intently.  
Tabitha continues.  
"Imagine it like a river that is neverending and always moving. It carries emotions and memories and all kinds of stuff.  
But right here, it feels like it stopped, like it froze into an ice block."  
Tabitha's aware she's rambling which she shouldn't be because there's a battle ahead, so she breathes deeply and stops herself from continuing. 

"Do you know why it stopped moving here?" Cody prompts, using her own analogies and encouraging her to proceed with her explanation, mostly because Tabitha needs to get this off her chest before the fighting embarks or it troubling her mind could end in injury or worse, but also because it interests him. Everything to do with Jedi culture and the Force could help him understand his general (and now commander) better. And he would finally be able to figure out how the kriff Jedi do what they do exactly. 

So Cody urges the girl to continue with his question and to make his curiosity more believable by looking down at her imploringly.  
Tabitha doesn't waste any time.  
"I think it's because of the fighting that has happened here. People have suffered and died on this street, fear and anger have ruled this place for a long time. That's probably what's made it stop and feel… well like ice, cold and still. I-it just makes me feel a little bit uncomfortable and it bothers me because I never felt that kind of sensation from the Force. But I'll be okay. Once something distracts me I won't feel it anymore. No worries." 

When she's done chattering about what troubles her, Tabitha notices that she feels lighter and all in all better.  
That really helped!  
Astounded but grateful, Tabitha looks up at Cody and smiles shyly. 

Truthfully, Cody is worried and astonished at how mature a twelve-year-old child can sound but he does not let it show and only grins back at her when she appears to have caught on with his plan to make her vent a little and feel a bit better.

"Thanks. That helped." Tabitha announces quietly, causing Cody to pat her on the back gently. "No problem, Tabitha. And don't forget, stick with us and we'll all have your back. Right men?!" He yells back at the clones behind them who have listened in on their conversation at some point. 

"Yeah!" Dozens of identical voices shout in unison, confidence radiating do bright in the Force that it melts a part of the frozen river, warming it just enough for her to feel a bit more comfortable in her own skin. 

Momentarily, she turns her head back to the men to give them a grateful smile before moving it back.

Breathing in the somehow now refreshed air (don't ask how that works), Tabitha concentrates back onto the shield which is now only a couple of hundred feet away from.  
Distantly, she can hear the mechanical marching, the thundering of the tri-droids' steps and the tanks' rumbling engines. 

Only two or three minutes left.  
Now's the time.

There's something she needs to say to the men.  
First of all, the times she needs them to lay cover fire for her and then to wish them luck.

"Okay, let's do this." 

She's never been much of an extrovert, always more pensive and quiet but when she needs to she can talk like a waterfall, she can joke and sass and annoy, she can order and yell. Depending on the situation, she adapts swiftly. 

After another few seconds of observing the approaching shield, Cody putting on his helmet and checking his own weapon one last time in the meanwhile, Tabitha is able to hear a few murmurs from the men behind her, wishes of good luck, one last joke before all hell breaks loose, words of encouragement, all of it you can hear from the brave men one foot away from the padawan. 

With one smooth movement, Tabby turns her back to the front of their blockade and increases the volume of her voice to make it louder than the roaring footsteps getting nearer.  
"Okay, everyone! Listen up for a moment." The yell catches every single clone's attention and although she hates being in the center of something she doesn't let that stop her. 

"Okay, you all know the plan and we all know what's at stake here today. Some of you, maybe better than I do. But before all of this starts I want you to know something: No matter what happens, have each other's backs and watch out, I don't think I really need to tell you that."  
Nodding goes through the crowd like a wave, so she continues.  
"We can't let anyone get past our lines, once the shield reaches our artillery we lose, so get creative in the defense. Fight dirty if you have to, confuse them, distract them. They're droids, we're humans. Use that against them."  
Her piercing green eyes trail over every helmet in the crowd, taking in markings and scratches individually.  
She's not done yet.  
"Even when you're sure that this is it, do not give up. Keep shooting, keep fighting and keep supporting each other. We only need to hold out until General Skywalker and Ahsoka have disabled the shield and I know we can. After that, the Separatists are going down in fire!" The ending of her own shout drowns in the united roar of approval from the clones.  
As the sound dies down a little, Tabitha proceeds eagerly. 

"As you know, I need to clear that side road ahead once the distraction team is ready to get them back here in one piece and a lot safer. Once I get them out and to the street's entrance, we're going to be pretty out in the open, though. Do you guys think you could lay down some cover fire once I give you the sign?"

"We've got you, Commander!" One clone in the middle of the crowd yells enthusiastically and Tabitha has to grin at the immediate agreement the statement receives.  
Nodding to herself, the padawan considers if there's anything left to say and there is indeed.  
"Let's make a deal then: You have my back, I'll have yours. That sound good?" 

The firm cacophony of "Yes, Commander." fills herself with a calm sense of determination and pride.  
She's growing into this role fast!

"That's what I wanted to hear." Tabitha mutters under her breath before moving to turn around, weapons and armor clattering from where some are hastily hunkering down behind their designated covers. 

Halfway around, one thought strikes her so hard and fast it makes her freeze on the spot. 

The shield is only a couple of dozen feet away now.

"One last thing." She yells, yet again gaining the full level of attention.

"Good luck and may the Force be with you, always!" 

With that said, Tabitha turns to the front entirely and walks forward to the very last rubble barricade, Cody walking right next to her with his blaster cocked and ready.  
To be honest, during her speech she kinda forgot he stood next to her all the time. 

"Did you practice that, Commander?" The clone officer asks with the smirk audible in his voice. Tabby just shakes her head and looks down on the ground abashedly. 

During that speech, Tabitha forgot everything around her, she ignored her own shyness, she ignored her introvert personality and just spoke.  
In that moment, she felt so in her element that she didn't think.  
It felt so right to motivate before battle that everything else somehow didn't matter.

"No, no I didn't."  
Tabitha whispers to herself, smiling softly. 

Steeling herself, Tabitha faces straight ahead, staring into the featureless faces of hundreds of battle droids however she doesn't find herself as utterly terrified at the sight as she thought she would be. There is, of course, a sense of dread that rushes through her veins but that isn't necessarily a bad thing. It could save her life as long as she doesn't let it control her. 

Thirty feet left.

Lightning-swift, Tabby unclips both of her lightsabers from her belt, spinning them in her hands to feel the familiar sleek and pointy cylinders' curved bluish-silver metal decorations, thumbs the maroon details before finally settling her fingers on the black rubber coatings and her thumbs on the contactors. 

(How she obtained two lightsaber crystals on Ilum is a long story for another time. For a padawan to own two lightsabers at the very beginning is rare.)

Twenty feet left. 

One last time, Tabitha sneaks a peek at Cody who has taken position behind his respective cover, weapon rising the closer their adversaries get.  
The man notices her tiny glance and gives her a perhaps encouraging thumbs up to signify his readiness to put the plan into action. 

Two vibrant shafts of light spring forth from the acuate hilts when Tabitha finally presses down on the buttons, one an arctic blue the other a rich green. 

Ten feet left. 

"Almost here now." She mumbles under her breath and twists her upper body a bit to lift up her right arm, holding up her green lightsaber in the process.  
"Everyone get ready!" She orders, arm still raised, and waits.

Five feet left. 

"Ready…." 

Silence except for the now deafening marching of the droids.  
The shield's frontier gets closer….

"Aim…."

Blasters power up and safeties are removed.

Just a little bit more….  
Closer…  
Closer… 

The shield moves right over them, encompassing their whole platoon in only a fraction of a second. 

"FIRE!"  
Abruptly, Tabitha pulls her arm down, signing even the ones who may not have heard her, to shoot. 

The shout is the factor that blows the lid off, the one that makes all chaos break loose. Controlled chaos but chaos nonetheless. 

A flurry of red and blue crossfire tears through the air around all of them and Tabitha already has her lightsabers up to deflect bolts that targeted her or the clones near her, sending them astray or right back at the droids who shot them.  
The wonderful feeling of otherwise fatal concentrated laser bolts ricocheting off of the energetic blades like they're nothing but bouncy balls makes Tabitha feel powerful.  
But let's not get cocky! The battle hasn't even really started. 

'Red is bad! Focus on those bolts and not on feelings or thoughts!'

The arc she can swing her twin lightsabers at is larger than the one, one lightsaber would cover which is why she loves Jar'Kai so much.  
More possibilities to defend and attack. It's hard to learn but once you do it's easy to master, for her at least.  
She defends the troops but keeps her arc small and predictable enough for them to shoot the droids ahead.

Already, the Separatists have pushed forward a considerable amount but the first lone droids only now reach their first rubble barricade and the ray shield's boundary is barely moving behind them.  
They have already slowed their enemy down significantly.

Their part of the plan works just fine! 

The young padawan uses the opportunity the B1 battle droids in front of her present to cut them down, three at once.  
The middle one she stabs in its metal chest with her blue saber, simultaneously swinging her other to the droid on the right, slicing straight through its body. Blue blade still immersed in the shutting down droid's torso, Tabitha spins on her heel, grasp on her left saber's hilt still tight, and swings her green lightsaber with her, effectively severing its head from the rest of its body.  
In one coordinated movement, her blades are at her side again, B1s crumpling to the floor in scrappy heaps, and she continues deflecting shots, waiting for the next line of droids that are slowly closing in. 

That's the good thing about droids, once submerged in battle they move like dumb snails. 

Slowly but surely, the Separatists' numbers start to dwindle, their straight-forward programming causing them to run into masses of blaster bolts.  
Unfortunately, the heavy ordnance they possess, meaning the tanks and the tri-droids, decide they want a part of the fun and start hammering their blockade with heavy fire.  
The hefty bombardment forces the men and her to take cover from the force of the blasts and most of the debris sent flying by it. 

Cowering behind the front line, Tabitha waits until their heavy ordnance needs to reload to get back to deflecting shots but thinks better of it after a second. 

Let some of them get closer and she can take out a whole line in one sweep. 

So she waits a bit longer, lets the clones return fire until she can hear the clanking of droids right behind her. Smoothly, Tabitha rolls onto the balls of her feet, deactivates her lightsabers and launches herself forward, rolling over her shoulder to get to her feet steadily. At the same time, she concentrates on the Force around the line of B1s and shoves them forward all at once, making them stumble and collapse over the rubble barricade.  
As their blasters skid out of their reach, Tabitha reactivates her blue blade, jabs the tip into the ground left to droids' heads and pulls it all the way through, slashing through their thin necks.  
The first one even managed to utter a defeated "Oh-oh" before losing its head. 

The bodies slacken and stay where they are as Tabitha continues blocking with both her blades.

Through the dust and debris still flying through the air from the explosions, Tabitha can barely spy out one platoon of droids, B1 and B2 alike, turn left and step onto the side road. 

'Distraction team appears to have made their move. Time to go!'

Deflecting on more shot which went straight for her head, Tabitha jumps back behind the cover right next to Cody with a high force-enhanced leap, conveniently avoiding looking at the body of an unmarked clone one foot next to her.  
Cody notices this and retreats behind cover as well. 

"Cody! You're in command now. I'm gonna go and get the others back safely!" The girl has to yell to be heard over the sound of blaster fire around them.  
"Got it, Commander." He nods, reloading his weapon to ready himself to give some cover fire for her.  
His next sentence is directed to the rest of the men.  
"Alright, men! Let's show these tin-cans what happens if they mess with the Republic's finest!"  
With another roar, every single man returns fire in a far greater number than before, mowing down droid after droid. 

'Now's my chance!' 

The twelve-year-old glances over the edge of their cover to get a look at the droids' formation and what way would be the best. 

The tin-cans are focused on the shots from the front and the side road so the best way to get there would be to jump over all if their heads.  
Problem is she won't be able to make it in one jump and landing in the middle of the fray would likely lead to injury.  
Another peek however reveals another chance which would still include jumping. 

One of the AATs is close enough to them and the side street that if she lands on that she could jump from it onto the side road. 

Sounds like a plan.  
Reckless and unpredictable but a plan. 

Tabitha takes a few crouched steps back and with the help of the Force, she takes a running jump across their blockade, aiming for the hood of the tank. 

With a barely audible clang, Tabitha touches down on the hood, right next to the tank's main cannon, unnoticed by everyone but her own troops although her lightsabers are still on.  
Stupid droids!

A smirk sneaks itself onto her features when another idea forms in her mind that would make this a bit easier for the others.

"If I'm already here." The padawan mumbles to herself, raises her green lightsaber and brings it straight down on the main gun in a vertical cut.  
The energy-blade tears through the thick metal like butter, detaching the cannon from the tank so that it lands on the floor with a loud clank, just as the main gunner wants to shoot again assumably if the vibrations that suddenly quake the tank are anything to go by. 

'Great time to leave!'

Hastily, Tabitha lunges for the street just as the electrical overcharge starts to make hearable noises in the tank and she lands safely as an explosion behind her rocks the earth and rips through the air, and wafts of smoke and plumes of fire start spewing from the wreck that was a tank a few seconds ago.

In a flash, Tabitha is up on her feet, trying to ignore the ringing in her ears or the thick taste of smoke already entering her airways, instead pointing her focus to the droids ahead of her, plenty of which have ignored the loud boom completely and infested the entrance of the building her master and his troops are stuck in. A few though were smart enough to have turned around to assess the situation anew. 

A B1 with yellow markings decorating its golden body frantically points at her with one of its three-fingered hands and turns its head to its companions.  
"Shoot the Jedi!" It screams in the, for battle droids ordinary, light and kind of annoying electronic voice.  
At its command, a bit more than half of its forces turn around and level their blasters at her head as one.

Faster than their processors can manage, Tabby pulls back both of her hands, including lightsabers, before thrusting them back forward, sending multiple droids flying against the walls of the buildings with one strong Force Push.  
Without wasting a second, Tabitha sprints towards the rest of the platoon, deflecting shots all the way until the first droid is within reach of her lightsabers.  
She swings at it with one blade, cutting off its wiry arm before slicing through its upper body, while she keeps the other up as a defense against the neverending blaster shots. 

After that, it's rinse and repeat, up until she arrives at the last squad blocking her destination's entrance.  
Two super droids facing her and a couple of feet behind them a super droid shooting into the building while standing still. 

Tabitha decides to take on the B2 on the left first while deflecting the shots from the other.  
She curtails her speed not far away from it, skids the rest of the way and slashes through the droid's impressive wrist gun before horizontally cutting it in half. 

The noise of the body halves hitting the ground does not convince the B2 in the doorway to turn to her but it does convince the other one not to stop shooting although it's already been hit twice by his own shots. 

So she gathers a small amount if the Force again and sends it crashing into it.  
The impact is just hard enough to make it stumble, just as planned.  
Switching from defense into offense, she runs for it, both lightsabers in front of her body, tips pointing forward. Before the thing can recover, its rotund body is already impaled on two different colored blades. 

When Tabby pulls her lightsabers out, sparks erupt from the holes and the B2 clatters to the floor. 

One look at the third one shows it is still not bothered by the sound and just keeps merrily shooting at whoever is on the other side of its blaster. 

It does not take notice of Tabitha strolling up to its back or her extending her green blade upwards to cut it vertically in two. 

With that one cut, the road is empty and silent except for the faraway sounds of combat. 

Also with that one cut, she finds herself facing the barrels of multiple blasters held by clones, Rex included.  
"Uh, I come in peace." She begins sarcastically, holding up her hands in a mock sign of surrender, lightsabers still activated.  
Immediately, all blasters lower and so do her hands as she enters the building, shutting off her lightsabers for now. 

"Good to see you, Captain." She greets him cheerily, grinning up at the clone before casting her scrutinizing gaze through the room.  
The men are taking up positions at the giant hole they came through, shooting every droid that dares to come close and the door that leads to the main street, there's rubble lying around as everywhere else, the only 'furniture' is a destroyed console near the center of the room. No other memorable items.  
She also notices that Rex's squad has suffered some casualties which makes her swallow harshly against the bile that threatened to climb up her throat. 

"Nice to see you, too, Commander. I believe the way back is clear?" Rex retorts, spying out of the door and pointedly looking at the droid parts covering the floor.  
Tabitha follows suit but looks back at the captain almost directly, thinking nothing special of it.  
"For now but I think they'll send someone again soon." She informs him quickly, a question she's anxious to ask lying on her tongue. 

Before she can though the reason for her question comes running through the hole, another clone on his tail. 

"Master!"  
She exclaims in relief, some part of the weight which had arranged itself on her shoulders when they parted ways lifting at seeing Obi-Wan unharmed. 

The addressed man comes to a halt in front of the two, looking over Tabitha for any signs of injury. When he finds none he legitimately breathes out relieved for the first time since they parted ways at the beginning of this. 

Just to be safe, he asks anyway "Are you okay, Tabitha?"  
"Yes, I'm fine. Not even a scratch." She chuckles, touched at the worried action of her newly assigned master.  
If this is how they act now, how bad will it be in a few years?)  
Doesn't matter, it promises a good start. 

Back to the present, though. 

'Concentrate! I can freak out in delight later.' 

At her simple and blithe answer, Obi-Wan's gaze trails through the door and over the droid parts littering the whole street impressed.  
Taking on multiple squads without backup and then coming out unscathed is a remarkable achievement, especially for her first real-life experience combat. 

He makes another note to himself: 'Tabitha already has a firm control on her Jar'Kai.'

"Great job clearing the way, then." He compliments her sincerely, causing Tabitha to chew on her lips coyly but grin up at him, face bright with pride. 

Their conversation is interrupted by an explosion making the giant hole in the wall tremendous and forcing the three of them to take cover behind the ruined console.  
Consequently, the men stationed next to the hole start shooting more viciously and get some assistance from others. 

"What's our status, Rex?" Obi-Wan asks over the sounds of shooting in the background.  
"They're right behind us, sir. They wiped out most of my unit. We had to pull out of there." 

This is getting better and better, isn't it? Up until now, it worked fine but the Separatists are pushing further on this site and on the main street where she can now catch one of the tri-droids walking past the entrance.  
If they keep losing as many men and ground as they do presently it'll only be a matter of time until the shield reaches their cannons. 

Speaking of which.

Leaning forward, Tabitha looks past Rex to her master and points down the street with the hilt of her lightsaber.  
"Master, the shield's almost at the cannons now. We don't have much more time." She cuts in, concern for Cody and the others making her stomach feel all mushy and disgusting, along with the hollow feeling of the Force from literally all around her it surprises her that she hasn't thrown up yet.

"We won't be able to stop them, General." 

Regrettably true.  
The Separatists outnumber and outgun the Republic by far. Without their artillery, they won't be able to push back.  
Master Skywalker and Ahsoka are the only ones that can stop this now but they need to do it fast or there will be nothing left to save.

"Not from here, no." The Jedi Master mutters and glances back around the console before returning his eyes to Rex.  
"Move your troops back to the heavy cannons. Do everything you can to protect them." He orders the captain, waiting until he nods before switching his plotting gaze to his padawan. "Tabitha, you go with them and back them up. Meanwhile, I'll delay the droids."  
Tabby nods along with the plan until her brain finally catches up with what was just said and she stops, staring at him incredulously. 

He can't be serious?!  
There are hundreds of droids all around them and he wants to delay them all alone?  
Obi-Wan Kenobi is good but no one can survive that. 

"But…"

"What?! Master!" 

Tabitha and Rex both disagree with that part of the general's plan and begin to voice their disagreement, Tabitha more vehemently than Rex.  
Obi-Wan silences their protests firmly. "That's an order!" 

Rex, to Tabitha's surprise, stands up, although reluctantly, and almost immediately upon moving out of his cover gets shot in the back of the head if it hadn't have been for Obi-Wan's quick reaction.  
The master ignites his blue lightsaber and stabs the super droid aiming for the captain's head in one precise movement, then hunches back behind cover and looks back over to Tabitha who still hasn't moved from her spot pressed against the console and who still hasn't stopped looking at him like he's the stupidest man alive, well still alive yet. 

Upon seeing the unadulterated distress shimmering in his padawan's eyes, he turns off his lightsaber, shuffles closer to her and lays both hands on her shoulders, looking her dead in the eye.  
"I'll be careful, Tabitha, but you need to go now. Your skills are needed elsewhere, where you can help the others. If you want to find me you know where to look."  
Tabitha frowns, not quite understanding the meaning of the last sentence, but managing an uncertain bob of the head nonetheless.  
If her master says she's needed by the others then she trusts his judgment.  
He's the master, she's the padawan and she may not like it right now but she trusts him implicitly, so she hesitantly moves from the console and to where Rex and the rest of his unit are shooting droids while waiting, igniting her lightsabers in sync with her master's. One by one, the clones back out of the room and onto the street, firing on droids until they can't, and after Rex is out, Tabitha pauses and looks back at her master who engages the B1s that have managed to enter the room. 

With a clenched jaw and heavy shoulders, Tabitha catches up to the others outside on the street, back turned and jogging away from the noises of shooting and a lightsaber cutting through metal. 

"We have to link up with the others. Let's get going!" Tabitha states grimly, jogging past the men and into the direction of the road's entrance.  
"You heard her, boys. Move it!"

Roughly fifty feet away from the end of the road, droids divide from the neat formations of their main forces and march towards them, blasters ready to shoot once closer. 

Decreasing their speed until they get to a stop, the men lift their guns and put their pointer fingers on the trigger, ready to fire when ordered.

Looking around quickly shows Tabitha exactly what she'd seen when she first entered the road: no cover, only droids' remains now.  
And because there's no cover for Rex and his men, Tabby puts herself upfront to provide some protection for the clones while they concentrate on shooting. 

"Fire!"

Yet again, her order brings immediate descent into chaos.  
Yet again, their unit shoots first, the droids shoot back and she stands in the middle and plays the defensive tower. 

One by one, droids fall to the ground with smoking craters in their chests or heads.  
One by one, the wall blocking them becomes smaller.  
And remarkably, none of them ever follow the droids example and get hit. Tabitha tries to deflect every shot that gets close and every bolt she can't deflect is either a stray shot or expertly dodged by the men. 

When there are only five droids left, Tabitha already starts to breathe a little bit easier but her guard doesn't relent.  
A few droids can shoot just as good as one hundred, even a dead droid's weapon could present a threat.

The statement rings true when the penultimate B1 goes down, finger unfortunately still pressed on the trigger, a loose shot fires from its blaster, going straight for a clone's head at an angle she can't reach with her lightsabers. 

Time slows as the shot already flew halfway, multiple blue blaster bolts flying for the last droids head and the stray shot going mostly unnoticed. 

Dodging the blaster bolt is next to impossible at this point because of its angle and velocity and Tabitha can't reach it with her lightsabers in time or the man to pull him away.

There has to be another solution! 

'Think, Tabitha, think.'  
When dodging is a no and lightsaber is a no, then the Force needs to be a yes.  
She hasn't learned how to slow physical objects yet but that isn't the only way to stop something from moving.  
A sturdy item will suffice. 

Mentally reaching out and probing her surroundings, Tabitha wraps the Force around the deactivated body of a B2 and tears the torso of its legs with one powerful yank, pulling it into their direction. 

Time speeds up again. 

In a matter of seconds, the body levitates in front of the clone's head, protecting him from the deadly shot.  
The impact of a bolt against metal reverberates in the alley like thunder, silencing the clatter of the last droid's slim body hitting the floor. 

Tabitha lets her left arm fall from where she had kept it elevated back to her side and as it falls the B2's torso falls as well, revealing a shell-shocked soldier staring at the charred gap right in the center of the body as if he's seen a ghost. 

The deeply jarring shock leaks into his Force Signature, demonstrating it for her to experience a portion of it. 

After a hot second, the clone shakes himself out of his awestruck trance and eyes her with what Tabitha can only describe as gratitude before nodding once appreciatively.  
She returns the gesture with a small consoling smile before moving to run again. 

"Come on! Let's go before they start missing these guys." 

As they finally, finally come to the road's entrance, Tabitha realizes just how right she has been when she said the droids pushed further. 

Their controlled fire against the clone forces, coerce them to retreat further and further with time, gifting the Separatists more ground.  
Like predicted, the entire road between their squad and the rest of their troops is a diffusive Killzone now.  
Moving out now is death and remaining standing out in the open means death!  
"Take cover." Tabitha orders, pointing to some non-burning debris of the tank she had blown up before. They all hunker down behind the scorched and smelling wreck pieces while Rex raises a question. "What do we do now, Commander?"  
In response to the question, Tabitha only peeks over the edge of her cover, trying to find out if Cody or someone else already noticed their arrival. That's when she spies out a familiar helmet in the turmoil and another clone pointing into their direction.  
'Looks like they've seen us!'  
Cody looks over into their direction and locks eyes with Tabitha for a second before shouting commands to his men. 

Tabby turns around to do the same and answer Rex's question.  
"Once I give the sign, the others will cover us. Run from cover to cover until you reach them." Tabitha explains pointing to the side where the rubble has been placed as cover points. "Concentrate on running and leave the droids to Cody and his troops. I'll take up the rear to keep some stray shots from hitting us. Understood?"

"Copy that."  
"Understood."  
"Got it, Commander."

"Good. Get ready."  
With that last warning, Tabitha stands from her cover, turns to the clones' blockade and waves at them.  
Not the most creative sign but it's more about efficiency, isn't it? And it does the job.

"COVER FIRE!!" Cody loud voice yells over the droids clanking and the blaster fire and in nanoseconds, every clone pops out from behind their cover and starts returning fire in greater numbers, erasing plenty of droids from existence at once but not without losing some of their own. 

Rex and what is left of his unit have already moved out at Cody's yell, surging along the side as fast as they can.  
Tabitha is right behind them, one eye trained on her own back to detect every shot that is aimed for them. 

In less than one minute, the whole unit slides behind cover and Tabitha, who had only had to deflect a handful of laser bolts, bounds behind one as well, pressing her back tightly against the pieces of rubble and breathing hard from the exertion. 

"You okay, Commander?" Rex asks from where he's crouched next to her.  
"Yeah, I'm good. Just give me a second." She pants, inhaling and exhaling deeply to get her heart and breathing back under control.  
"Your men?" She questions in between breaths.  
"The remaining ones made it out, thanks to you."  
"Wasn't only me but no problem." Tabitha murmurs in response, the first part of the sentence quieter than the rest. 

Behind the cover, Tabitha is greeted with the sight of countless approaching droids, marching over the hundreds of bodies of their own kind, disregarding the casualties walking without cover brings them. 

"What's taking so long, Ahsoka?" The teen whispers under her breath, glaring up at the shield encompassing them.

Just when the padawan ducks back into cover, Cody dashes over to them and crouches beside Rex.  
Before he can utter a sound, Tabitha already addresses the other commander.  
"Cody, what's the situation?"  
"We have managed to take out a good amount of their army but they still outnumber us by far. Their pure overwhelming numbers push us back." Cody replies grimly, firing over their cover once to take out a couple of droids who have come too close. 

Eyes skimming over the ground they lost and then over the ground they still have and the surviving men fighting tooth-and-nail against an army larger than any of them can honestly handle, Tabitha ultimately acknowledges that there is no chance they can stop them on their own, they can only slow them down to buy Anakin and Ahsoka more time and put up one hell of a fight while doing so.

"Okay. Top priority is the protection of the cannons!" Tabitha shouts over the boom of a nearby blast, pointing at the sparsely placed rubble around them. "Cody, take some of the men and fortify the perimeter around them. If it comes down to it, that'll be our last line of defense."  
The clone commander is up and about before Tabitha even finished her sentence, gathering men as ordered.  
"Rex! You, me and the rest will stay right here and buy the others some time to do their job before we join them. Ready?"  
Rolling onto her feet, Tabby tightens her grip on her lightsabers, somewhat comforted by their steady weight, and waits for the captain's answer.  
"Ready. Let's give 'em hell!"

With that, both of them spring out of their cover, Tabitha hopping over it to stand in the front, and back into the fray.  
As usual, the exchange of blue and red blaster fire seems neverending, even when the clones take cover to reload, it never stops.  
They're lucky enough that the Separatists' heavy ordnance has elected to leave them to the infantry droids and save their power, although Tabitha doubts it's going to stay that way.  
But whatever they do, no matter how many blaster bolts she sends back and no matter how many droids they take down, they barely make a considerable dent in their opponent's army.  
Every time they take out the front line it's replaced by another.  
Apparently, they have an endless supply of droids at their disposal and it's overwhelming their own forces whose supplies and ammo are dwindling. 

Twice now, they had to pull back a bit because droids overran their positions in the front and they can't risk losing more men than necessary by vainly attempting to defend those positions. 

For multiple slow-going minutes, the fight goes on normally until Tabitha hears a yell behind her.  
"Commander!"  
So she backs away from the front, never letting her guard down, and scrambles behind the cover the shout came from.  
The clone who shouted turns out to be Rex.  
A clone runner, probably, is kneeling next to him, stricken posture and Force Signature just so screaming bad news. 

'Oh, no. What now?!'

"Commander! Captain! General Kenobi has been captured." 

Just like that, just with that one blunt sentence, the girl can feel her heart sinking into her boots and her resolve crumbling inside of her.  
There's a feeling in her abdomen that can only be described as the one of being punched.  
Her breathing hitches, freezes in her throat that it makes inhaling and exhaling feel like the hardest feat she's ever faced, and as she speaks her mouth feels like soggy cotton and the words she speaks like they came from someone else.  
"Are you sure?" Her voice is so quiet it should've gone unheard by everyone because of the blustering soundscape but the runner still understood her and nods somberly. "You're all that's left, Commander."

Right, put your faith into a twelve-year-old girl in her first battle, nothing wrong with that.

Her master's been captured, Ahsoka and Anakin still have not disabled the shield and their losing ground and time. How can this go any more wrong? 

'Focus.'

Significant blows but not the end. Ahsoka and Anakin still have time and they can still fight and if - when - they win they can get her master out of the Separatists' hands.

And all of that would be great if she could get herself to really believe everything will be fine but she can't. Worry won't stop nagging at every strategy that starts forming in her mind.

Damnit! 

"If you want to find me you know where to look."

Realization dawns on the girl as the accented voice of her master rebounds through her head.

Of course!

Tabitha's eyes close in concentration as she calls upon the Force to carry her consciousness back to where Tabitha has last seen her master. 

The Force doesn't visualize, doesn't let you see your surroundings, through it, you can only feel the energy exuding from living beings but that enables you to see just as good as you can with your eyes.  
And finding a force-sensitive Jedi Master in the middle of lifeless droids is nothing short of effortless. 

Especially if something seems to be pulling you there anyway.  
It's like a constant tugging at an incredibly durable string that's dragging her mind into the building at the end of the side road where she comes discovers the presence of the man she's looking for.

He is a brightly lit spot in the Force, hard to overlook even if you wanted to, but what almost knocks her out of her focus is his presence which is filled with nothing of what she had expected. 

Fear? Not really, that man's probably fearless. I  
Anger? Maybe.  
Defeat? Definitely.

But, nope, none of that. Only calm determination and pretended honesty underlined with some sort of smugness. 

'What is he doing?' Tabitha asks herself when she senses another presence near him. One more arrogant and annoyed. More malicious and dark.

With a simple mental nudge against his awareness, Tabby calls her master's attention to herself, emanating concern and confusion to make her trouble known to him.  
In a jiffy, her master's surprise turns into recognition, then relief.  
He doesn't seem worried about his predicament, not in the least, it even comes across like he intended his capture to happen. 

//What are you planning, Master?\\\  
There's worry coating the question like glazing on a cake, just not as sweet, while she keeps herself linked with her master.

She never ever expected an answer to her question. 

Telepathy is a Force ability she had not yet mastered fully and lacked knowledge in.  
But somehow, regardless of her lacking mastery of this power, her master can hear her without problems and reply as if he stands right next to her, accented voice just a tiny bit echoey. 

//I'm distracting the Separatists' general. Don't worry, Tabitha. Everything is under control. I will be fine. You just focus on the cannons.\\\  
….  
//You can do this, Little One.\\\

His response is clear, no sugarcoating, and the encouragement and trust sticking to that very last sentence put her every doubt and every worry to shame.  
Even the questions as to how she suddenly managed to use telepathy vanish with that one admittance of trust.

Because the explanation is simple: They're master and apprentice, teacher and student. He trusts her and she trusts him.  
The durable string that has been pulling her here, is the beginning of a growing Force Bond which has sparked to life during their little time spent together.  
A bond that instantaneous is extraordinary and rare but certainly not unheard of.  
There have been plenty over the years. 

What wouldn't be possible if there's a connection between them even now?

It's as easy as that!

//Thank you, Master. May the Force be with you.\\\  
//And with you, Tabby. Be careful and mind the Force.\\\

Faster than lightning, her mind pulls back into her body and as eyes flutter open again, Tabitha discovers that what could've been minutes for her, were only seconds out here. 

Rex and the clone runner are both still looking at her in a mixture of sadness and expectation, the battle around them is still raging like seconds before.  
Only difference: She feels more courageous than she ever has before. Her master has spent her certainty and strength when they had 'talked'. 

She won't disappoint him!

With her master's assurance in mind, Tabitha speaks more steadily than is suitable for kneeling in the heart of a battlefield.  
"General Kenobi is fine. He's delaying the enemy's general for us. Once this is over, we'll join in and help him."  
The surety in her voice calls puzzlement to the clones' minds and just as one of them presumably opens his mouth to inquire how she knows this, the padawan aims to set their minds at ease for the moment. "I'll explain to you how I know this later. Right now, we need to keep those tin-cans away from our cannons!" 

From her position in front of the two soldiers, Tabitha sneaks a peek over their shoulders at the advancing machines, looking for something to get them at least a tiny advantage. 

There has to be a smarter way to this than their current course if action. There has to be something that could down more than they can replace in the matter of a second. 

Anything….

Kark! Nothing!  
Not with their present armament.  
The infantry they replace immediately, the tanks are too bulky to take any damage from their portable weapons and the octuptarra tri-droids ar-

'Wait a minute! The octuptarra, of course!'

Her wandering sight snaps back to the gigantic droid so hastily her eyes felt like they could have popped out of their sockets.  
The spider-like droid is walking accurately in the center of a formation consisting of at least sixty to eighty droids and three tanks flanking it. If it falls and explodes, it would take out every single one of them, considering the blast is big enough. 

Issue is getting it to explode. 

Someone would need to get up close and plant some charges.  
Fighting the way through the droids is a no-go. Going all the way around would take too long and probably wouldn't even work. The droid's too far away to throw the explosives. 

Letting her eyes wander again, Tabby's gaze eventually lands on the buildings on the sides of the street and their protruding window sills.  
That's it!  
The troops may not be able to get up there fast enough and to the giant droid but she could.  
The only things she needs are her lightsabers, sticky explosive and a little bit of help from the Force. 

"I got an idea that could take some pressure off of our troops for a minute or two." Tabitha starts, looking back at the clone soldiers, her exact plan of action playing out in her head.

"Say, do we have like a backpack and about… ten to fifteen sticky explosives?" 

One minute later, a GAR backpack filled with twelve sticky charges and a detonator lays in front of her, two intrigued clones crouching next to her, watching the girl sling the backpack over her shoulders and pull the straps a bit tighter to secure it. 

After checking that the pack will not fall off mid-air, it's time to finally let the clones in on the 'plan'.

"Okay. You see that tri-droid right there?" She asks rhetorically, pointing at it.  
"I am going to get on top of it, attach the explosives to its head, cut off the front leg to make it fall and once I'm out of the blast radius, I'll push the trigger. The blast of the explosion will take out everything around it and slow them down significantly." 'Hopefully.' 

Tabby can practically feel the incredulous frowns through the clones' helmets but it doesn't deter her from her plan.  
It's not completely thought through and totally risky but she sees no other effective way to take out so many with one move.  
So she readies herself, checks the straps again (because she's paranoid) and if her lightsabers are securely clipped to her belt. 

That's when Rex decides to finally voice his worries. "Commander, are you sure that's the only way? It's very dangerous and there are numerous things that could go wrong."  
"Yeah, I know, but this could buy Master Skywalker, Ahsoka and our troops the crucial minute that we need to win this." The padawan reasons, appealing to Rex's strategic thinking.  
This could, with high possibility, save all of their lives and that's not something you can look past just because it's dangerous.  
The captain still doesn't appear to like her plan but reluctantly relents, nodding thoughtfully. 

With a steadying breath, Tabitha steps closer to the big piece of rubble, the same one she's been perched on before the battle started, they have conveniently stood behind and prepares herself to climb up the few feet to the top when she realizes she forgot to say something. 

"Oh, and Rex? Tell the men to fall back to the cannons. I don't want to risk anyone getting caught in the explosion." Tabby admits, nodding into the vague direction of their front lines.  
"We'll be down to our last line of defense then, so don't let anything get through."  
"Will do, Commander. Once you're up there, we'll give some cover before falling back." Rex compromises, readying his twin blaster, and Tabitha shoots him a grateful smile.  
"Thanks. As spectacular as going out with a bang sounds, I don't want to try it." She jokes, hoping it hides her frayed nerves, before clambering up the boulder. 

Immediately, Rex and the runner join back into the fray, the captain already shouting orders at his men. 

Once on top of the boulder, Tabitha wastes no time to jump to the highest windowsill she can reach and the second her feet touch the ledge she takes off running. 

As her feet pound on the hard material and the devices in her backpack rattle, Tabby hears the sound of blaster bolts picking up and knows that the men are trying to keep the tin-cans attention on them and not her, she knows some of them are dying to protect her by doing so.  
Every death sends little tremors through the Force and every shout of pain tears at her heart. 

Gritting her teeth against the feelings, Tabitha forces her legs to keep going, to not stop and turn around to defend the clones. She forces herself to ban the thought from her mind and keeps running.

For the time being, she deprives her actions and mind of all thoughts and handles on instinct alone.  
(It's easier that way.)

Upon nearing the edge of the building, Tabitha vaults to the next, the one closer to the tri-droid, where she sprints further before skidding to a standstill midway.  
The tri-droid is now within the distance she's able to jump whereupon the girl backs up against the windows, takes one last breath to calm her ever-accelerating heartbeat and darts forward.  
Only when her toes hit the edge does she jump, to guarantee she ends up where she intends to land and not as a pancake on the floor. 

In midair, the padawan closes her eyes, fear of being seen and shot down overpowering her rationality. She may have come up with this but that doesn't mean she likes it! 

Though as soon as her knees crash down on the hard metal, hands shooting out instinctively to stabilize herself, her eyelids shoot open again and her squared jaw relaxes. A breath she had not realized she'd been holding claws its way out of her mouth and Tabitha can't help but chuckle a bit tensely, although it sounds more like a pathetic wheeze. 

Gods, what is she doing up here?  
'I've gone completely crazy!' 

Eventually, Tabby reins in her hysterical thoughts and pacifies her madly beating heart enough to look up from the sphere-shaped head. 

Only for a dizzy spell to overtake her and make her look back down hastily. 

First of all, she's kriffing high up and second of all, how many droids do the Separatists have?  
Force only knows how many they have destroyed by now, there's twice as much waiting for them back there.

Master Skywalker and Ahsoka need to hurry up a bit!

'Alright, get yourself together.  
Don't think, just do! Don't think, just do!'

Like a mantra, she keeps repeating it in her head whilst fighting off the dizziness blurring her sight and cautiously sitting back on her knees even though every step the tri-droid takes feels like a small earthquake up here that could make her tumble down the whole droid.  
Setting down the backpack, Tabitha opens it and takes out the first explosive, sticking it to the head and activating it. As it starts beeping and blinking incessantly, the teen takes out the next and does the same on another spot.  
It goes on like that for the next one or two minutes, until all of the twelve charges are set and activated in different places on the head, beeping and blinking at different intervals.

At the bottom of the pack now only lies the trigger for the bombs. She grabs it, shoulders the backpack and unsteadily climbs to her feet.

It only needs to be activated as well and it'll connect with all of the charges, if she then presses the button on top of the device this whole thing will blow to hell. 

Carefully, Tabitha activates the trigger and waits until every beep and blink synchronizes with the trigger's.  
All connected and ready to blow.  
(Never thought that'd be a sentence she'd ever say.)

That's done, so she moves onto the next part of the plan. 

With wary steps, Tabby skulks to the droid's front and glimpses over the edge.  
The leg's right under her. With precision and balance, she can land on it and stay there to cut off the mechanical limb.  
Doing just that, she lands on it, head situated just under one of the droid's three cannons. 

'Don't you dare shoot now. I like my hair as it is!' 

Okay, the last step of the plan goes into action now. Unfortunately, that's the part of the plan least thought through.  
Once she cuts off the leg with her lightsaber, the octuptarra will plummet forward, so fast she won't be able to get back up on the head in time to reach a windowsill. Her only chance to get off of this thing without dying is pouncing in the direction of their defense and hoping she'll get far enough and then blow it up.  
Will it work? Unlikely.

Or she could use the blast from the explosion to her advantage. She could trigger the bombs midair and let herself be launched forward by the shockwave from the explosion. That course of action relies more on luck rather than skill but she's more likely to survive that, with a few bruises because of the impact with the concrete floor.  
It'll hurt but it's more favorable than death. 

Yep, the latter it is. 

With her right hand (her left-hand holds the trigger), Tabitha unclips her green lightsaber and ignites it, then rams it side-first into the leg. Of course, it doesn't cut straight through as it did with the tank's cannon but slowly and surely the metal melts away under the inner heat of her lightsaber and before long, Tabitha is already halfway through.  
Unconsciously, her grip on both lightsaber and trigger tightens until her knuckles shine white through her skin and she shifts part of her weight on the balls of her feet. How she hasn't fallen down yet is a miracle even to her. 

A few inches are left and Tabitha makes herself ready to jump.

With little resistance, her saber passes through the thick metal and almost immediately both the detached leg and the rest of the droid start falling. 

The young padawan deactivates her lightsaber and pushes her feet off the remains of the leg in one swift movement, intensifying the strength of her push with the Force and mind going blissfully blank as air rushes past her ears, drowning out even the thunderous hammering of her heart. 

What she does hear over the air viciously licking at every bare patch of skin it can touch, is the loud clang of the octuptarra's body hitting the ground and without deliberation, Tabitha presses down on the trigger and waits for the inevitable shockwave to hit her unguarded body. 

She doesn't have to wait for long. 

The deafening boom behind her could definitely be heard miles away as a thunderclap which is exactly how the blast feels in her back.  
A bruising clap that sends her body flying further than it would have on her own.  
Her mind barely acknowledges the follow-up explosions of the surrounding tanks, still reeling from disorienting speed her body flies at. 

She pushes her grasp on the Force to the limit by trying to slow herself which in the end works semi-good.  
It could be because at this point her body and mind are more dead tired and worn down than ever.  
Due to her rough job decreasing her own momentum, Tabitha uses every last ounce of her strength to create a small invisible cushion on the floor that will at least soften the collision so she won't suffer any serious damage. 

Instantly upon impact, the air is forcibly thrust out of her lungs as her body turns sideways and slithers and rolls uncontrollably over the ground.  
Her face she tries to shield behind her arms which in turn take the brunt of every roll and scuff over the dirty street, creating multiple bleeding scrapes down both of them, the same goes for her lower legs. 

Fully registering the pain her body is in takes a moment but even then it's not overwhelming.  
Maybe it's because of the lingering adrenaline but you'd think the pain would be worse after a landing like that but in all honesty, it only feels like getting hit with a semi-solid ball over and over again. Everything's throbbing and sore but nothing results in so much pain that you might black out or anything.  
The Force prevented anything from breaking because it pushed against her momentum and her arms prevent her head from smashing against the ground, so all in all the worst of the pain is the burning of the scrapes when dirt comes into the wounds.

It feels like hours before her body finally slows down and she stops rolling altogether but it couldn't have been more than a couple of seconds.  
And it feels like another ten minutes before her brain decides to come out of the blender, her stomach ceases doing somersaults and her body realizes it's not moving anymore.  
Her eyes, which were squeezed shut the whole time, deliberately flutter open, revealing her hair, including padawan braid, concealing her view of the street that must be in front of her due to her lying on her side.  
Thankfully not on her back and therefore the backpack. That rectangular thing digging into her back would've hurt even more. 

One after the other, Tabitha wriggles her limbs to assure herself that she did not lose anything or break something.  
She didn't.  
Except feeling like a single big bruise, Tabitha thinks she's alright. 

Now, moving is a different matter, one she would very much refrain from doing but she needs to.  
Because whilst she's just lying here, the Separatists are digging their way through the debris that must be blocking their way now.  
She doesn't have the time she wants so she needs to move now, back to the troops. Just because she's exhausted and her energy totally depleted doesn't mean the battle's over. 

Albeit unhappily, Tabitha moves her head to the right as a test and when her hair finally falls back into place and she can see the sky of Christophsis through squinted eyes without feeling any new sparks of pain, the padawan gently coerces her shaky arms to collaborate and hoists her upper body up so she is now sitting, groaning when the movement puts some strain on the developing bruises on her torso.

Oh, how sore she's going to be for the next week. Fantastic! 

With quivering muscles, the girl works on angling her legs into an adequate position so she can get herself vertical again, not once catching sight of the furiously burning wall of debris her little excursion entailed. 

However, it doesn't even come to her feebly trying to rise from her seated position thanks to a pair of hurried, armored footsteps growing closer stealing her required attention away from moving.  
Owner of those steps turns to be a clone trooper (who would've thought) in blue and white armor. Not Rex, but the armor is still familiar to her anyhow.  
Even before her mind fully acknowledges the weird familiarity, it recognizes the bluish-silvery item the soldier scoops up from the ground without quitting to run.  
Her lightsaber!  
She must have let go of it during one of her one hundred flips. Don't ask her which one. Her brain turned into a scrambled egg at some point after the fifth. 

Without warning, the soldier kneels down next to her sooner than anticipated, blaster clasped in one hand while the other gently reaches around her shoulder, mercifully relieving her unstable arms and shoulders of an immense percentage of her weight.  
She sighs a little bit in content and leans more onto the bracing arm, a flickering appreciative smile playing at her lips.  
"Commander, can you hear me?"  
"Yes." The padawan croaks in return, locking eyes with the man to appease the worry she clearly heard in his question.  
His voice is loud and clear, doesn't provoke any new pain or a headache, so the odds of her being concussed are next to non-existent. As far as she can tell. She never had a concussion before.  
"Good. We need to move back behind cover. The Separatists could come through any minute now-" 

The rest of his sentence is cut off when, as if on cue, the uproarious clash of metal hitting metal and the grating noise of a heavy object being shoved over the ground fills the exceptionally silent atmosphere.

For one brief moment, Tabitha only manages to stare at the foremost droids breaking through the smoking barrier in dread before she feels the man beside her hurriedly but carefully working the straps of the backpack of her shoulders and maneuver them onto his own.  
"What…?"  
Further words lose their pitch as Tabitha finds herself being heaved up bridal-style, the arm holding the blaster snaked around her knees and the other around her shoulders. 

A startled yelp replaces the unfinished question and her right arm shoots up intuitively, wrapping around the soldier's back as he starts to run back to where the others are waiting, guns poised. 

Earsplitting short discharges whip through the air, giving rise to a tiny, almost imperceptible flinch in the teen.  
The ground where she had sat only a split second ago detonates in a hail of crimson red blaster fire, caving a minor depression into the material.

And Tabitha only gawks. Gawks until there's nothing to gawk at because the sight of the smoking cavity disappears behind the demolished rubble of their makeshift cover. 

Why she's gawking?

In that moment, Tabitha had understood how close death was the whole time. How every deflected shot was death's cold breath in her neck and how the explosion equals its arms reaching for her.

Had it not been for the Force in those situations or had the soldier even reacted one second later, she would probably be grilled meat. 

'Deep breath, now. Frantically panicking over how things could've gone won't get you anywhere. You're okay and safe. Well, as safe as it gets.'

Her own reassurance helps get the hysterical horror back under control. What helps more is her back hitting the debris (doesn't help her bruises though) when the bigger man sets her down on the ground. Settling next to her, the clone's plated chest heaves with panting breaths he wrestles to get quieten, presenting her a window to speak.  
"That was way too close. Thank you."  
If it weren't for the helmet, Tabitha is sure the man would be grinning down at her. 

Briefly, it crosses her mind that she would like to know his name. 

"Only returning the favor, Commander." The soldier replies once his breathing rate decreases. 

'Returning the what now?'  
Bewildered, Tabby eyes him, his armor including the markings and that's when it hits her.  
How could she have been so stupid?!  
That's why his armor looks so familiar.  
It's the clone she saved from being shot back in the alley.

With a breathy kind of snort, Tabitha shakes her head in amazement.  
That's what he almost got shot for? A favor? Unbelievable. 

"What's your name?"  
"Blazer."  
"Well then, Blazer, I'd say we're quit." Tabitha offers to which Blazer chuckles amusedly (which sounds a little bit weird through the helmet's filtration system) and nods his head in agreement.

A pained moan interrupts the moment when Tabitha leans to the side a bit to catch a glimpse of the yet again advancing and attacking forces of the Separatists. 

Her body isn't exceedingly thankful for the crash landing. 

Blazer isn't oblivious to this, of course.  
"Commander, are you okay? You had quite the harsh landing back there." He asks, concern even obvious through his helmet, in both his voice and his gaze.  
She waves him off before he can fret. "Don't worry. Nothing's broken, only got like a million bruises and a few scratches." She assures, pointedly glaring at the sluggishly trickling scratches as if to intimidate them to stop bleeding and stinging.

Blazer displays every sign of being doubtful but he says nothing, only looks at her so intensely, she has to suppress fidgeting. Tabitha can basically feel the raised eyebrow.  
"I promise."

Her vow strikes him as truthful, so he grabs his rifle from where it laid at his side and makes a move to rise before thinking different of it all of a sudden.  
The reticence confuses Tabitha temporarily until the clone unclips something from his belt and hands it to her.  
"You lost this."  
Her lightsaber!  
Right, she lost that. Almost forgot that Balzer had picked it up too.  
Wrapping her pale fingers around the hilt, Tabitha thanks the man again.  
"No problem, Commander."

Then, he's gone, joining his brothers in the fight, and she's left on her own, gazing wistfully down at her lightsaber.  
There's nothing she wants to do more than continue fighting with the others but she feels about ready to drop and nothing prevents her from doing so once she's upright. 

All except her willpower that is. 

There she stands on unsteady legs, body throbbing and dog-tired, but igniting her lightsabers nonetheless although she'd rather do anything but.  
Unwilling to fight anymore, Tabitha sends one last prayer to her best friend.  
"C'mon Ahsoka. Now's not the time to be tardy. We need you now!" 

The spark of hope deep in her heart, that will forever refuse to expire, can't help but flare up in anticipation as she looks out onto the battlefield. 

Nothing except the unrelenting marching of the droids in front of her, the ones she knows are only a meager quantity of what's coming their way.  
The devastation they'd bring is something she never wants to witness come true. 

"Please…."  
At this point in time, she's technically begging for the galaxy to have mercy, repeating 'Please, please, please' in her mind, meanwhile shifting her stance and lifting her sabers, foreseeing that she's gonna have to fight.

She does not.

In the bat of an eye, the shimmering red shield starts to dissolve in random patches until it's gone completely, divesting the droids and their heavy armament of their precious protection. 

To say that her heart is soaring along with the clones' would be the understatement of the day!  
All around, the void of death is brimming with the pleasant golden light of victory. And wherever she looks, Tabitha can only sense happiness and relief.

The frozen river of the Force thaws. 

"You're the best, Ahsoka." 

Tabitha is this close to sagging to the ground in a boneless heap but before she can do that there's one last thing that needs to be done to end this all.  
Spotting Rex's visor turned her way, Tabitha makes a show of gesturing to the cannons behind them.  
"Would you like to do the honor, Captain?"  
The satisfaction in her voice is plain and the pride in Rex's even more so when he gives the final order.  
"All cannons, fire on those tanks!" 

As one, the aim of the cannons shifts downwards slightly, directly at the first line of tanks and droids, and they go all out on their enemy, withholding no ounce of energy. 

Not in any way had Tabitha ever thought she'd welcome the repetitive sound of explosions nor for the heat of the high rising flames to warm the cockles of her heart.

The clones cheer louder and louder with each obliterated tank which in turn makes her feel more animated and at least not dead on her feet anymore. 

Slow but steady, the droid army is thoroughly decimated and without enough room to retreat, they're sitting ducks on the long stretch of roads. 

With their long-range cannons, the Republic's triumph is assured. 

More so as several LAAT/i gunships fly over their heads and take part in the shooting before touching down on various flat clearings, repulsorlifts kicking up dirt during the landing sequence.  
New, combat-ready troops alight from the laterally open main cargo holds, the majority of which either provide support for the battle-worn soldiers who are introducing stragglers to the muzzles of their rifles or aid the injured.  
The remaining ones unload a bunch of supply crates, working with rapid efficiency.

Overhead, the low rumble of the giant venators' engines rings out, indicating that the giant cruisers will set down somewhere to unpack equipment of the GAR.

Others would doubt her sanity now, but for Tabitha, this is the most glorious sight she's seen in all of her twelve-years in this galaxy. 

The clangor of metal corpses slamming against the ground reminds her of the stragglers waiting to be taken to the scrapyard. 

A self-assured smile steals itself onto her thin lips. 

'Well, time to take out the trash.'


	5. Chapter 5

Thinking back on it now, Tabitha is ready to avow that she should've left well enough alone.  
Instead of chasing after droid survivors she should have sat down somewhere to replenish her energy and left that to the men. 

She had been dead from the neck up then, now she's dead all over.  
….  
Okay, she's going a bit overboard here.  
Frankly, she's totally beat and her body is aching as a result of a lengthy period of battling but because she does not know how death feels like she'll claim she feels like death warmed over. 

Drama Queen at her best!  
Deal with it!

Gods, she must be unbelievably tired if this is where her mind's going.

Oh gosh. Someone, please save her from the rubbish her brain leaking!

"Ow." Tabitha hisses sharply through her teeth, fleetingly blindsided by a short stabbing pain setting the nerves of her right arm alight which goes with the wind the next second. 

'Not what I meant when I pleaded for help.', she complains to herself, lightly scowling down at the source of the sting. 

A clone medic, Helix as she found out, has a gentle grip on her forearm while spraying disinfectant into the open abrasions and cleaning the not-bleeding wounds.  
The ones on her left arm and both legs have already been treated, meaning cleaned and dressed in bacta bandages.  
And every time the disinfectant hurt as much as does now and every time she was still surprised by that fact. 

Before caring for those wounds though, Helix had taken a look at the bruising on her torso, poking and prodding until he could finally confirm that she had not broken a rib or so. 

The exact same thing she could have told him because with a broken bone she would most definitely not have moved from the spot, probably whimpering and all that poodoo you do when severely injured.  
Never before had she suffered a broken bone so how would she know, but from what people say, she can imagine. 

"Almost done, Commander." Helix reacts apologetically to her small inkling of pain, glancing up at her with warm but serious hazel eyes before returning them to his work. 

How a sentence manages to be an apology although it's not constructed as one is an ability all grown-ups (even age-accelerated ones) seem to have perfected with excellence. 

The concept is so bizarre and so human that it nearly makes Tabitha grin elatedly. 

Whoever alleged that clones were nothing but mindless soldiers had obviously never interacted with them.  
They're just like every other human, born and raised differently but fundamentally acting in a similar fashion. 

And then the small quirks you notice when paying attention. None of them look different but all of them behave differently. Where one is reserved, the other is vocal. Where another is hard-boiled, the other is boyish. And so on.

Easy to notice if you're well attuned to Force and the presence of other beings.  
She may not be the best and strongest but she can feel the differences, every youngling, no matter how old, would be able to. 

Oh, did she say they all look the same? Scratch that. They don't.  
It's their eyes. Helix's are hazel and when she had discovered that her mind went back to Rex and Cody, the only other two clones she had seen without a helmet. Cody has limpid brown eyes but Rex's slip more into a sort of amber color.  
Fascinating, isn't it? 

Tabitha wonders if there are clones with blue or green eyes or some other color. 

Luckily, Helix did not expect a reply from the girl on the lone crate and silently resumes treating her arm. 

Averting her eyes to blend out short intervals of light pain sparking in her arm during the cleaning process of the last untreated injuries, Tabitha clenches her teeth and pays heed to their surroundings out of the necessity to distract herself. 

The first thing that catches her eye, is the vast turquoise landscape of Christophsis.

Unhurriedly, the sun sets, kissing the fine line between heaven and earth and painting the sky a gorgeous reddish-orange and the numerous fluffy-looking clouds in a shady purple hue. Coupled with the soft glow the terrain is bathing in, the sight is absolutely breathtaking. 

Her eyes trail back to their current location. 

The looming frame of the grounded cruiser next to them tosses a huge shadow on the skyscrapers of the city and the bright white armor of the disembarking clones shine in the last rays of sunshine.  
(The ones from the survivors of this battle, smudged with soot and ash, seldom do.)  
And let her tell you, there are masses of them marching in lockstep down the ramp, along with multiple AT-TEs.

Not far from her, her master and Master Yoda, who had arrived with the cruiser, are taking stock of the situation and talking about something Tabitha hadn't bothered to listen to. 

Normally, as aforementioned, she is the nosiest person she has ever met but presently the only topic which interests her is whether she'll find a refresher and a cozy bed soon or not. Both of which will be in use for hours because the dirt clinging to her like a second skin makes her feel gross and sleep sounds like the best kriffing idea in the galaxy.  
Everything else be damned!

Another sharp twinge in her arm breaks her out of her longing daydream and yet another involuntary flinch arises as a reaction.  
This time, Helix says nothing, instead squeezing her wrist softly as though to assuage her discomfort.  
By dint of some kind of occult medic-power, it actually works and her strained muscles loosen up a smidgin, the pain fading into bearable pins-and-needles. 

Expelling a long-winded sigh, Tabitha unfixes her motionless eyes from the point between her legs, which stretched out on the box, and back skywards.  
Barely in time to see a handful of LAAT/is weaving through the peaks of skyscrapers, heading straight toward them. 

In one of them, Tabby can feel an unmistakable presence in the Force, one that is much more luminous than when they separated approximately two hours ago. 

Ahsoka's thrilled happiness is extremely contagious, Tabitha realizes when an empathetic smile automatically comes to her lips upon sensing her best friend's uplifted spirits. 

'Are they finally getting along?' she asks herself jokingly, already knowing the answer.  
They are otherwise Ahsoka wouldn't be feeling so jubilant.

Tabitha is happy for her.  
The older girl deserves recognition from her master. 

In a trice, the gunship, with the supernova that is Ahsoka and another just as dazzling Force Signature that can only be Anakin Skywalker, sets down briefly to drop the two Jedi off, Master Skywalker saying something to Rex (what, she can't quite catch or what the captain responds) and Ahsoka making a beeline for Tabitha, baby blue eyes radiating glee in impossible amounts but worry's swimming in there too. 

Worry for Tabitha.

And because Tabitha is a good friend and doesn't want a few cuts to besmirch Ahsoka's jolly mood, she cracks an easygoing smile and waves at her with her unrestricted hand, heedlessly dismissing the throbbing it provokes from her forming contusions.  
"Hey, 'Soka."  
"Hey, Tabby…." The Togruta eyes the bandage that sticks out of Tabitha's tunic's sleeve minutely, somewhat put at ease by her friend's careless greeting but mystified as to why the human is sitting on a crate and being treated by a medic. 

Tabitha is prone to get herself into trouble sometimes but, good gods, their first real-life assignment and she gets hurt. So typical. 

In an exasperated manner, Ahsoka sighs and looks at Tabitha with mock-stern eyes, arms akimbo. "So, what happened to you this time?"  
The girl at least has the decency to look sheepish at the subtle reference to the few other times something equivalent to this situation occurred. 

Lost for words, Tabitha searches for a change of topic, something to redirect the girl's focus to something other than her. 

"Ehmm…."  
'Yes, Tabby, that's it. Very clever.'  
Before Tabitha can find something intelligible to say, Helix takes the liberty to respond for her.  
"She jumped from an exploding tri-droid." He summarizes m tersely, not looking up from applying the last bandages to Tabitha's right arm. 

'Oh, honestly. Traitor.'

Pursing her lips as a display of her disapproval, the black-haired girl grudgingly has to admit that the summary is pretty accurate.

"You did what?!" The aghast expression on Ahsoka's face and the way she leaned forward a bit the moment she heard the word 'exploding' as if she thought she misheard, makes Tabitha cringe and chew on her lip guiltily.  
"It helped defend the cannons though." She counters meekly.  
Ahsoka's audible intake of breath indicates she's trying to stay cool and modest with the younger girl and implies she wants to continue discussing this but Helix intervenes before the conversation can escalate any further.

"It did. Kept the tin-cans off our backs for a few minutes and the explosion took out good a hundred of them." 

How a living being can sound so calm all the time will forever be a mystery to Tabitha.  
Being a medic either gives you abilities unknown to everyone or Helix is just like that.  
Or both. 

It's silent for a moment after Helix's factual intervention, in which the clone medic checks the bandages one last time and then nods approvingly to himself when he finds no errors.  
Ahsoka is still looking at Tabitha like she's off her chump but she stays quiet. 

The silence is only broken when Helix speaks again, packing the disinfectant and the rest of the bacta bandages into his medpack. "You were lucky though, Commander. Every other time, a landing like that would have caused at least one bone fracture. The contusions will heal just fine in the span of the next week and abrasions are superficial, so with the bacta, they will be fully mended in a couple of hours.  
Keep it easy and nothing will hurt." He concludes, taking a step back from the crate she's sitting on.  
"Will do. Thanks, Helix."  
"You're welcome, Commander." 

With that in lieu of a goodbye, Helix strides away to wherever, leaving the Jedi to their business. 

"And people always say I'm the impulsive one." Ahsoka pipes up after the medic walked away, way more relaxed but still a bit disgruntled.  
"Because you are!" Tabitha exclaims, not believing her ears. Is Ahsoka honestly trying to pass on her reputation to Tabitha? Un-kriffing-believable.  
"Mhm. So that stupid idea wasn't impulsive and unnecessarily dangerous?"  
"Okay, first of all: That idea wasn't stupid." Tabitha says indignantly, scooting off the crate to get onto her tired feet.  
"And second of all: Unlike you, I did think about it before going through with it." Tabitha accusingly points at Ahsoka's face once she stands in front of the taller girl.  
"So, everything that happened was planned to the tiniest detail?" 

Is this some kind of role reversal? Usually, Tabitha is the one doubting Ahsoka's meticulous thinking. 

Pinching the bridge of her nose, Tabitha relents, knowing that lying to her best friend won't get her anywhere but further into this meaningless discussion.  
Ahsoka is just trying to get a rise out of her. The badly concealed complacent grin reveals that.  
"In most instances, it was thought through. Happy?"  
"Yup." Ahsoka snickers, throwing an arm around Tabitha's shoulders and pulling her against her side.  
Groaning in both annoyance of her friend and in pain when Ahsoka accidentally hits one of her tender bruises, Tabitha jabs an elbow into her ribs, immensely pleased with herself when that gets a grimace out of the older girl.  
If she is suffering, she's making Ahsoka too.  
"Nerd." Ahsoka grits out between her teeth good-heartedly and Tabitha smirks.  
"Lurdo."  
(Yes, you heard right, she knows the Ewokese word for 'dummy'.) 

"This is just your luck, Master."  
The deep voice of Anakin Skywalker captures both of the silly smiling teens' attention. 

Master Skywalker is pointing at his former master with a cheeky smirk pulling his lips upwards.  
The sigh from Obi-Wan is telling enough and conveys just what he thinks of the Knight's antics and although he attempts to hide it behind a well-placed hand, the smile is obvious.  
"It's nice to know that you seem to be enjoying this, Anakin."  
"Oh, I am. Something makes me think, assigning Snips over there to me as a padawan was your idea from the start. For you to get another 'reckless' padawan is only fair." 

"See. Even my master says you're reckless and that is saying something."  
"Well, at least it's something you two seem to agree on. You're welcome." 

As all of them bicker and joke, no one notices the satisfied expression sprouting on Master Yoda's wrinkly green face when the Force sings in his pointy ears, grateful for bringing together these four individuals in its name. 

Something tells the old grandmaster that the Force intended for them to be united for more than just the present.

Their friendship will shape the future of the entire galaxy. 

"Missions for you, I have." The aged (and grammatically incorrect) voice of the elderly master interrupts their little fun squabbles, silencing all of them in a jiffy.  
He waves the two padawans, whose sides are still pressed against each other by Ahsoka's arm, over to create a smaller distance between them and the three older Jedi.  
Unwrapping her arm from around Tabitha's neck, the youths do as asked and step closer, creating a small circle. 

"To the Teth System, you two will good." Yoda comes directly to the point, a clawed finger indicating to Anakin and Ahsoka. 

And like immediately upon being pointed at, Ahsoka is blazing with energetic interest and Tabitha really asks herself how someone can have so much energy left after everything that happened in the last hours.

Unlike Tabby who is totally wrung out and only craves to sleep, Ahsoka shows none of the telltale signs of exhaustion. 

Every other line of thought is terminated when the conversation goes on.  
"Teth? That's wild space." Anakin states confusedly. "The droid army isn't even in that sector." 

'Then it's probably not because of droids.', Tabitha reckons, not stupid enough to say that smartass comment aloud though.  
No need to blow her chances with her best friend's master. 

"Kidnapped Jabba the Hutt's son, has been." The short man clarifies sullenly, ears sinking and hands tightening on his cane.  
Every time this happens, Tabitha can't banish the thought that it makes her think of a kicked puppy.  
'Not the time!' 

Okay, that doesn't exclude the Separatists' influence. Kidnapping a child to attain power over someone sounds like something they would do.  
A Hutt but a child nonetheless. 

"You want me to rescue Jabba's son?" Anakin sounds like he can't believe what he's hearing, rescuing the Hutt appears to bother him in the least. 

Tabitha's nosy alarm is tingling, very loudly right now. 

Something has occurred between Jabba and Anakin before. 

"Anakin, we'll need the Hutt's allegiance to give us an advantage over Dooku." Her master rationalizes, giving Anakin a look that only the knight really knows the meaning of. 

From her perspective, it could mean anything. 

Maybe someday, she can decipher what this look means. When she knows her master better.

Right now, the only thing can do is stare in astonishment until Yoda grunts in agreement with Obi-Wan's clarification. "Negotiate the treaty with Jabba, Obi-wan and Tabitha will. Find the renegades that hold Jabba's son your mission will be, Skywalker."

Tabitha is so close to exclaiming in glee that she has to physically bite the inside of her cheek to stop herself.  
Negotiations sound like the best fricking thing right now.  
Fighting is cool and all but absolutely draining and if she had to fight again so shortly after the first time she'd keel over from overexertion.  
And negotiating may be interesting too, especially if you can observe and learn from one of the best.  
Obi-Wan hasn't earned his nickname 'the Negotiator' for nothing. 

Yep, she's not complaining about their assignment. 

Futilely, Tabitha tries to keep the triumphant smile off her face but whatever she tries she can't. She may not have won some sort of competition but to her, it feels just as enjoyable. 

"Come on, Master. It doesn't sound that hard." 

"Don't jinx it, Ahsoka." Tabitha mumbles under her breath, smile still in place, but Ahsoka hears her and briefly scowls down at her.  
For that brief moment, Tabitha fearfully half-expected a punch to the shoulder but, Force be thanked, Ahsoka does not. Wouldn't have done much damage because her body is a bruise in itself but she's still grateful.  
When Ahsoka then turns back to her master, Tabitha knows the crisis is averted.

"I'll find Rex and get the troops organized." The Togruta finishes cheerily and with her confident gait vanishes to find the captain. 

Wow. Typical Ahsoka.  
Not even a goodbye. 

Tabitha watches her best friend trudge away and it crosses her mind that this is a sight that she'll see more frequently from now on: Her best friend's back turned to her, walking away to fight a whole other battle.  
They won't spend every minute in each other's company as they've done for the last years of their shatterproof friendship. More and more time they'll spend everywhere but the temple. 

And Tabitha is unsure if that's a good or a bad thing, if she should be excited or afraid. She's uncertain if the squeezing sensation around her heart is because she can't wait for the changes in her life or because she doesn't want it to. 

Could it be both?

In conclusion, you could say Tabitha is simply an insecure little girl intrigued by and fearful of what the future holds. 

'Is this how I'm supposed to feel?'

Force, her head is starting to hurt because of all the mixed emotions in her body that she can't interpret.  
She needs to stop overthinking everything and focus on the here and now. 

Just how she's trained to do, she can do this. 

She can't do this.  
The more she tries to shut her mind down, the more thoughts clash against one another.

'Just ignore it, get rid of it later. When I'm alone.' 

So she does, with a dry throat and a hurting head, Tabitha unglues her chaotic eyes from where Ahsoka has long since disappeared from, enduring them jump over everything and everyone how they please, and tells herself that everything will be fine. 

A warm, calloused hand on her shoulder startles Tabitha, meandering eyes locking in place, and she jumps right out of her skin at the sudden contact before she feels just who it is. 

Her master. 

He's peering down at her with a knowing look in his steel-blue eyes and small seemingly insignificant smile. 

But to her, that smile is the catalyst that sets things into motion. 

A warmth crashes over her without any warning or sign where it originates from. 

It's a warmth like she has never felt before. It's nothing like when you're happy or proud of yourself. This one doesn't come from an emotion, this one solely makes her feel more comfortable in her own skin and soothes her frazzled nerves and the overwhelming sensations of her own mind.  
It's not supposed to bring happiness, just an easier mind.

And something so unique can only come from something unique. 

The bond!  
That one little, tiny, small string that binds Master and Apprentice. The same one is now drenched in the warmth, all flowing from Obi-Wan with no visible ends. 

Moon-eyed, Tabitha regards the ginger male with no small amount of wonder before trying a tentative smile.  
"Thank you, Master." 

The timid thanks doesn't thwart the master from sending unending, soothing energy over the bond which she is immensely grateful for. 

"There's no need to thank me, Tabitha."

Oh, there unquestionably is but Tabitha doesn't argue to differ and only bobs her head once without any meaning behind it.

All of a sudden and with purpose, Obi-Wan moves to squat down in front of her so he has to look up not down, and stares into her blinking lush eyes.  
"Tabitha, I need you to listen very closely now….See this as your first lesson, if you wish." 

His voice is so big and urgent that, just like Master Yoda's, it demands your every grain of attention.

"You are in a situation, right now, where many people are feeling just like you. Scared of what's to come." 

'Of course! Of course!'  
That's why he provided her with that soothing energy. Because he felt her insecurity.  
Even without a rudimentary bond such as theirs, overlooking feelings so drastic if the source can't kriffing shield has to be close to impossible. 

Tabitha would very much like the ground to swallow her whole.  
Please. 

"And that's okay."

'Huh?'

"No one ever faces the future fully without fear but don't let that fear draw you from this path. Understand what it is that scares you and then trust the Force to help you with it.  
Not only because that's the way of the Jedi but because I've seen and heard how well you have handled yourself out there. You have quite literally been tossed into this without cushioning and you haven't complained once. You took everything this battle threw at you and you adjusted." 

A smile morphs his serious expression into something lighter, something softer but Tabitha doesn't really take notice of that. All she does is gawk at her master totally gobsmacked, mouth hanging open and eyelids almost invisible.  
She's been praised before but never this intensively. And it makes her feel strong like no blaster could burn her skin, and it makes her stormy mind quieten, focussing solely on the sentences from her master, twirling them around to look at them from every side like they're the most valuable jewels ever generated, but she doesn't understand where Obi-Wan is going with this.  
What is he trying to teach her?

"What I'm saying is that whatever the future brings for you, whatever it will be that scares or unsettles you, don't let it shape your path for you because I know that the qualities you showed today will mark you as a great Jedi."

'Eh, wow. Ehm…'  
That's it. Tabitha's brain has officially short-circuited.  
Her master has just told her, after three or so hours of knowing her, that he wholeheartedly believes she'll be a great Jedi someday.  
Whose brain wouldn't turn into goo after that?

How can he be so sure, though? What made him come to that conclusion? 

She's speechless and clueless but she feels on top of the world. 

Is she supposed to reply to this? Because if so she has no idea what.

"And never forget Little One: As your master, I will always be there for you. No matter what it is, you can always come to me. Promise me that, would you?" 

Can she possibly feel any better?  
Perhaps with rest yes but other than that. 

This she can do for her master. She can promise him when she needs help he'll be the first one she goes to. 

"I promise, Master."

In the sheer bliss of the moment, Tabitha beams down at Obi-Wan, her heart and mind over the moon and every fear for the future put on hold for this one juncture in time. 

Even as Obi-Wan unbends his knees and stands, stretching his surely stiff back muscles, Tabitha's gleaming expression does not falter and when he speaks again, a different topic now, her happily skipping heart does not stop.  
For the next few days, this will be staying with her just like the aching of the bruises will be. Hopefully, the better can counteract some of the worse. 

"Well, we better get going if we are to negotiate a treaty with Jabba the Hutt." He gestures behind him where, when Tabitha looks around his middle, she can see a gunship with Cody and a few other clones in it.  
"Hopefully, your delight from earlier hasn't vanished. Negotiating with a strong opponent such as Jabba can take quite long but it is instructive."

'Oh, so someone did notice that.'

"Nah, Master. I'd rather not fight again today. Negotiations, even if lengthy, sound great!" Tabby responds, a long-winded yawn taking this perfectly timed moment to illustrate why a fight is a bad idea.  
"Well, that is understandable. You must be exhausted."  
A lazy hum is the only response as they set themselves into motion.  
"Then, I guess you'll be happy to hear, the men have already readied a quarter for you. Once we're back on the Negotiator, I'll show to it so you can wash and rest. Getting from here to Tatooine will take a few hours even in hyperspeed." Obi-Wan explains when they step into the gunship's cargo hold. 

"That is the best idea I have heard all day, Master." Tabitha immediately agrees, mind already focused on the suggestion of some well-deserved shuteye, not interested in anything else. 

Jabba can wait for these few hours!

As Tabitha's hand slowly reaches for the bar to hold during the flight, she quickly greets the clones who return her greeting without an ink of hesitation.  
And when the floor starts trembling softly beneath her feet, the low rumble of the engines starts up and the ship slowly leaves the hard ground, Tabitha thinks this is the real start of her padawan days.  
Not the introduction a few hours ago, not the battle she just took part in, no this: 

The moment she looks out over the crystalline blue landscape of Christophsis and can tell herself without the littlest amount of insecurity:

'I am the padawan of Obi-Wan Kenobi!'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you all liked it. 
> 
> Just wanted to mention that if you want me to write about something in particular in this series, feel free to tell me! 🤔  
> I'll try to make another story soon😉


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